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  • Between Western Universalism and Cultural Relativism

    Between Western Universalism and Cultural Relativism

    TPF Occassional Paper – 01/2025

    Between Western Eurocentric Universalism and Cultural Relativism: Mutual Recognition of the Civilisations of the Earth as precondition for the Survival of Mankind

     

    Andreas Herberg-Rothe

    In the 19th century, the Europeans conquered the whole world; in the 20th century, the defeated nations and civilizations had to live with the victorious West; in the 21st century, the civilizations of the earth must finally learn to live together.

    The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was codified by the United Nations in 1948. But the academic debate on the universality of the norms on which it is based is far from over. The question remains whether there are universal values other than those of the West. Western values alone are often implicitly regarded as universal. But whether this is scientifically justifiable is more than debatable. At the same time, few participants in the debate seriously doubt the need for universal human dignity.

    In the current debate, the binary positions of relativism and universalism are in a stalemate. A way out of this dichotomy would have to withstand the charge of ethnocentrism as well as particular relativism. Neither should dimensions of power and colonialism be ignored, nor should inhumane practices such as torture, humiliation and sexual violence be relativised by reference to another ‘culture’. If a universal approach is to be found, it should not be implicitly Westernised. This is a criticism of existing approaches, particularly in postcolonial theory.

    Historically, ethnocentrism, as a mere description of a state of affairs, has developed into a justification of ‘cultural superiority’ and, as a consequence, of oppression and exploitation.

    It is about the justifiability of universal norms on the one hand, and the inevitability of particular justifications of norms on the other. Historically, ethnocentrism, as a mere description of a state of affairs, has developed into a justification of ‘cultural superiority’ and, as a consequence, of oppression and exploitation. An initially unconscious preference for and belief in one’s own (cultural) perspective, the unquestioned truth and correctness of one’s own norms, values and patterns of behaviour, did not develop into ‘live and let live’. This form of ethnocentrism rejects the acceptance of cultural differences and represents an attitude that legitimises the destruction of the foreigner as a legitimate consequence of one’s own superiority. This, of course, refers mainly to the long-standing colonisation of supposedly ‘inferior’ peoples by European states and the associated cultural appropriation and cultural destruction or exploitation. These practices were morally legitimised on the basis of the conviction that one’s own way of life was superior to all other ways of life, not only militarily and politically, but also cognitively and morally. Ideologically, this argument is based on various elements, including the proselytising idea of the Christian message of salvation, the idea of the ‘progress’ of Western civilisation over other cultures and the idea of ‘racial doctrine’.

    In reaction to this unreflected, chauvinistic ethnocentrism, two main currents of contradiction developed: universalism and relativism. Universalism ‘assumes that it is possible to find standards of value that apply across cultural boundaries and are universally valid’, while the relativist position, in the absence of the possibility of an ‘extra-cultural’, objective judgement of a situation, all cultures, with everything that belongs to them, are ascribed the same value.

    Universalism

    The argumentative basis of Western universalism is the assumed fundamental equality of all human beings – both in their intellectual capacity (cognitive) and in their materiality (normative), which leads to a general insight into certain universal norms. The most obvious example of this is universal human rights, whose need for universality is clear from their very name.

    The cognitive premise of this kind of universalism goes back to the Enlightenment and the idea that all human beings have, in principle, the same cognitive capacities, even if they differ in individual cases. Only on this basis can the premise of normative universalism in the Enlightenment be realised. But this leads to various problems, paradoxes and points of criticism, because this conception is based on a particular understanding of rationality that is rooted in the thinking of Western modernity. For example, it excludes any kind of holism, although this conceptualisation is by no means irrational, but represents a different kind of rationality.

    The apparent paradox of the uniqueness of each culture lies in the claim to universality that all cultures are of equal value. We can therefore speak neither of a universalism that is purely independent of culture, nor of a norm that can be attributed to only one culture.

    One frequently pursued solution to the tension between universal norms, which nonetheless originate in only one culture, and different culturally determined norms has been to search for what is common to all cultures. This approach, which in itself goes further, was pursued above all in the project of the ‘global ethic’, which sought the common foundations of all religions. Western modern universalism had thus abandoned its claim to all-encompassing universality and limited itself to a kind of ‘core norms’. Instead of questioning specific cultural practices, the focus is on the fundamental premises of human coexistence. In my view, this project was doomed to failure after the initial euphoria, because the commonalities were based on an ever-increasing abstraction. This leads to two fundamental difficulties: the unresolved problem of drawing boundaries between different forms of norms, and the justification of particular norms on the basis of the universal assumption that all cultural norms are in principle equal. The apparent paradox of the uniqueness of each culture lies in the claim to universality that all cultures are of equal value. We can therefore speak neither of a universalism that is purely independent of culture, nor of a norm that can be attributed to only one culture.

    Strong normative relativism represents a ‘normative statement that all normative systems are fully justified in their diversity’ – a paradox since this is a statement with a claim to universal validity. In contrast, weak normative relativism is derived from the impossibility of universally valid normative statements, which merely means a ‘non-evaluability’ of normative systems  The demarcation between concrete social norms  is therefore very difficult

    Because of the difficulty of justifying strongly normative positions, ‘differentiated’ theories of relativism argue from a ‘weakened position’, albeit at the expense of unambiguity due to the lack of demarcation. Culture is then understood as ‘dynamic and hybrid’, while ‘normative overlaps’ are recognised without doubting the fundamental relativity of all norms.

    Paradoxical structure

    Relativism does not provide a ‘ground zero’ from which to make generally valid statements – this rules out the possibility of relativism being universally valid in itself, as well as the possibility of relativism being regarded as a ‘universal truth’.  Relativism cannot, therefore, justify itself out of itself, which it has in common with other theoretical currents in the age of postmodern critique (Herberg-Rothe 2025). Moreover, it does not necessarily apply universally, but can be limited in time or place: So the undecidability of normative conflicts might appear to be a particularly obvious contemporary phenomenon, without it being true for all times and places that normative conflicts are fundamentally undecidable. This concept of decidable and undecidable questions is based on the position of Heinz von Foerster’s radical constructivism. In his desperate attempt to leave behind all only apparent objectivity and the subjectivity of all norms, he resorts to a binary opposition between objectivity (in mathematics) and subjectivity.

    Due to the equivalence of all cultural standpoints and the lack of presupposed values, no well-founded criticism can take place, which makes relativism normatively arbitrary in relation to itself. Neither the persecution of minorities nor discrimination can be legitimately criticised if this is seen as a cultural particularity. The norm of ‘absolute tolerance of cultural differences’ is both empirically untenable and logically inconsistent, since here too there is a claim to universal validity. However, this point of criticism already presupposes the premise of universalism that there are conditions that are worthy of criticism despite their culture-specific justification.

    The observed norms and values appear to be specific responses to specific social problems but are in no way connected to the supposed ‘essence’ of a culture, as culture itself is perceived as hybrid, fluid and contradictory – instead of judging inhumane practices of one’s own culture, it is about understanding. In this context, the post-colonial reality should also be mentioned, in which there are no longer any cultures without interference.

    Relativism in its weakened form has moved away from normative statements. In the absence of a judgmental dimension, it no longer makes a statement about tolerance towards certain cultural practices. The observed norms and values appear to be specific responses to specific social problems but are in no way connected to the supposed ‘essence’ of a culture, as culture itself is perceived as hybrid, fluid and contradictory – instead of judging inhumane practices of one’s own culture, it is about understanding. In this context, the post-colonial reality should also be mentioned, in which there are no longer any cultures without interference.

    In order to be able to criticise on the basis of relativism in human practices despite all these objections, two possibilities need to be mentioned:  1. to establish ‘qualified norms’ without further justification in order to criticise on the basis of them, and 2. to practise a particular, culturally immanent criticism – of one’s own cultural norms on the basis of other norms of one’s own culture. For example, there are numerous culturalist justifications for gender equality, “general” human rights or democracy, which shows that a culturally immanent and particular critique of domination does not necessarily have to differ in content from a universalist critique (see for example Molla Sadra in Herberg-Rothe 2023). Both solutions are in no way ideal, because in the first attempt, we encounter a hidden enthnocentrism, and in the latter, the problem arises between contrasting norms within one culture.

    Covert Westernisation and reverse Ethnocentrism

    Relativism is also a theory of Western origin, which can be seen in the Western-influenced ‘idea of tolerance’ – but this point also applies mainly to a normatively strongly interpreted relativism.  Inverse ethnocentrism, on the other hand, means ‘labelling everything foreign as right’.

    What underlies both, universalism and relativism, is the struggle for knowledge: which norms can be taken for granted? Or, more philosophically, what can we know? Both positions have argumentative shortcomings that are not easily remedied.

    Knowledge is closely linked to power (the power to define, to enforce, to disseminate or to withhold knowledge) and thus to domination and often to violence. This connection is expressed in social tensions between the legitimation of domination and the subversion of existing conditions.

    The use of human rights to achieve social change raises the question of “whether this process is not itself, in terms of knowledge, a bureaucratic, almost classically ethnocentric process with an imperial claim to universality’ that spreads ‘Western culture’ and its models of action globally’.

    Transnational encounters since the colonial era have steadily increased due to globalisation and require reassessment. The use of human rights to achieve social change raises the question of “whether this process is not itself, in terms of knowledge, a bureaucratic, almost classically ethnocentric process with an imperial claim to universality’ that spreads ‘Western culture’ and its models of action globally’. At the same time, this process opens up a dialogue beyond culturally determined borders, which we must be aware in order to transcend them.

    How could this stalemate between ethno Universalism and cultural relativism be overcome, at least in perspective?

     A new approach to practical intercultural philosophy

    Intercultural philosophy can play an important role in this process of mutual recognition among the civilizations of the earth. Since Karl Jaspers, the godfather of intercultural philosophy, acknowledged the existence of four different civilizations (Holenstein 2004, Jaspers 1949), immense progress has been made in understanding the different approaches. Nevertheless, all civilizations have asked themselves the same question but have found different answers. Cross-cultural philosophy is thus possible because we as human beings ask the same questions (Mall 2014). For example, in terms of being born, living and dying, between immanence and transcendence, between the individual and the community, between our limited capacities and the desire for eternity, the relationship between us as animals and the ethics that constitute us as human beings – our ethical beliefs may be different, but all civilizations have an ethical foundation. In fact, I would argue that it is ethics that distinguishes us from animals, not our intellect (Eiedat 2013 about Islamic ethics). We may realize the full implications of this proposition when we relate it to the development of artificial intelligence.

    Detour via Clausewitz

    An alternative solution to the problem raised by Lyotard suggests another dialectic, as implicitly developed by Carl von Clausewitz based on his analysis of attack and defence. The approach of Clausewitz is insofar of paramount importance because it presupposes neither a primacy of identity in relation to difference, contrast, and conflict, nor to the reverse as in the conceptualizations of the post-structuralists (Herberg-Rothe 2007, Herberg-Rothe/Son 2018) or the adherents of a purified Western modernity in the concepts of Habermas and Giddens. In contrast to binary opposites, Clausewitz’s model of the “true logical opposition and its identity,” a structure-forming “field” (something like a magnetic field) allows us to think of manifold mediations as well as differences between opposites. If we formulate such an opposition in the framework of a two-valued logic (which formulates the opposition with the help of a negation or an adversarial opposition), there is a double contradiction on both sides of the opposition. From the assumption of the truth of one pole follows with necessity the truth of the other, although the other formulates the adversarial opposition of the first and vice versa. Hegel’s crucial concepts such as being and nothingness, coming into being and passing away, quantity and quality, beginning and ending, matter and idea are such higher forms of opposition which, when determined within the framework of a two-valued logic, lead to logical contradictions. Without taking into account the irrevocable opposites and their unity, a “pure thinking of difference” leads either to “hyper-binary” systems (such as the relation of system and lifeworld, of constructivism and realism) or to unconscious absolutizations of new mythical identities (such as Lyotard’s notion of plasma as well as Derrida’s chora).

    Clausewitz’s “true logical opposition” and its identity enables the thinking of a model in which the opposites remain irrevocable, but at the same time, in contrast to binary opposites

    1. both remain in principle equally determining; this model is therefore neither dualistic nor monistic, but cancels this opposition in itself and sets it anew at a new level.;
    2. structure a “field” of multiple unities and differences;
    3. enable a conceptualization, in which the opposites have a structure-forming effect, but do not exist as identities detached from one another,
    4. and in which there are irrevocable boundaries between opposites and differences, which at the same time, however, are historically socially distinct. The concrete drawing of boundaries is thus contingent, without the existence of a boundary as such being able to be abolished (Herberg-Rothe 2007, 2019 and Herberg-Rothe/Son 2018). Clearly, in the, albeit limited, model of a magnet neither the south nor north pole exists as identity, a (violent) separation between both even leads to a duplication of the model. At the same time, both poles are structures forming a magnetic field, without a priority for either side. And finally, Clausewitz’s model of the true logical opposition goes beyond the one of polarity, because it additionally allows us to think of manifold forms of transitions from one pole to the other (Herberg-Rothe 2007, Herberg-Rothe/Son 2018).

    This conception of an “other” dialectic is also the methodological precondition of thinking “between” Lyotard and Hegel (Herberg-Rothe 2005). It treatises above all categories such as mostly asymmetrical transitions and reversals as well as the “interspace” (Arendt) between opposites. With such an understanding of dialectics, it is possible to understand the apparent contradiction between the rejection of the highest meta-meta-language and the fact that the language used in this critique, theory, is itself this actually excluded “highest” level of language, not as a logical contradiction, but as a performative one. Such performative contradictions between what a proposition, statement, etc., says and what it is are at the heart of Hegel’s notion of dialectic. Of all things, Hegel’s criticized and rejected form of dialectic makes it possible to conceive of these contradictions not as “logical” ones, but as ones that ground, but also force, further development as distinct from mythical ways out. This form of dialectic, however, contains at the same time the demonstration of a principle of development without conclusion and thus puts Hegel’s “great logic” as “thoughts of God before the creation of the world” in its place (Hegel Preface to the Science of Logic, Wdl I, Werke 5). Nevertheless, these performative contradictions should also not be absolutized, they are just one aspect of a different dialectics.

       Although I advocate the development of an intercultural philosophy as part of transnational governance and mutual recognition among the civilizations of the earth, I would like to highlight the main problem, at least from my point of view. Aristotle already asked the crucial question of whether the whole is more than the sum of its parts. If I understand Islamic philosophy correctly, it starts from the assumption that the whole is indeed more than the sum of its parts – one could call this position a holistic approach (Baggini 2018). In contrast, Western thought is characterized by the approach of replacing the whole precisely by the sum of its parts. We might call this an atomistic approach – only the number of electrons, neutrons, distinguishes atoms etc. In terms of holism, I would argue that the task might be to distinguish the whole from mere hierarchies – in terms of the concept of harmony in Confucianism, I would argue that true harmony is associated with a balance of hierarchical and symmetrical social and international relations. Instead of the false assumption in Western approaches that we could transform all hierarchical relationships into symmetrical ones, we need to strike a balance between the two. Harmony does not mean absolute equality in the meaning of sameness but implies a lot of tension. Harmony can be characterized by unity with difference, and difference with unity, as already mentioned (Herberg-Rothe/Son 2018). I sometimes compare this perspective to a wave of water in a sea: if there are no waves, the sea dies; if the waves are tsunamis, they are destructive to society.

    I start from the following fivefold distinction of thinking, based on the fundamental contrasts of life (while Baggini 2018 and Jaspers 1949, for example, reduce different ways of thinking largely to the development of functional differentiation).

    1. Attraction and repulsion, closeness and distance, equality and freedom, love and hate,
    2. Beginning and ending (birth and death, finiteness – infinity),
    3. Happiness and suffering (in Greek and Indian philosophy
    4. Part-whole (individual-community, immanence-transcendence, holism-hierarchies).
    5. Knowledge (experience, positive sciences, extended sense impressions,

    and method – mathematics and logic) versus feeling/the concept of intuition, belief.

    The listed methodological approaches try to cope with unity and opposition. In my opinion, they are also necessary approaches and can be seen as differentiations within the idea of polarity.

    Differentiations in thinking

    1. Either – or systems, = Western modern thought, concentration on the method (since Descartes and Kant, Vienna Circle, Tarski), democracy, individualism, in Islam Ibn Sina and Ibn Khaldun, in Chinese thought the tradition of Han Fei and Li Se; Yan 2011, Zhang 2012).
    2. As well as – Daoism, early Confucianism, but also New Age approaches, Heißenberg’s uncertainty principle, and dialectics.
    3. Neither-Nor enables the construction of “being-in-between”; Plato’s metaxis plus Indian logic, the whole concept of diversity, difference thinking, de-constructivism, the post-structuralism, post-colonialism
    4. system thinking, structuralism – here I struggle with the distinction between holism (in the Islamic worldview) and pure hierarchies (in Islam Al Ghazali); inherent logic of systems (Luhmann) and functional differentiation; in Eastern philosophies, we find this approach mainly in highlighting spiritual approaches
    5. process thinking – in ethics this can be found e.g. in utilitarianism, stage theories (Piaget, Kohlberg; Hegel’s world history as the progress of freedom consciousness), Hegel’s becoming at the beginning of his “logic” as “surplus” of coming into being and passing away; cycle systems; enlightenment; Dharma religions, in China, Mohism.

    While there are probably already worked out methods for points 1, 4 and 5, I lack such for 2 and 3, which are always in danger of expressing arbitrariness. This becomes especially clear in the mysticism of the New Age movement.

    How can this fivefold distinction be derived from one model, which is not a totalizing approach (Mall 2014)? For this purpose I use  again the simplified model of polarity. This method is elaborated in my Clausewitz interpretation of his wondrous trinity and the dialectic of attack and defense (Herberg-Rothe 2007 and 2019).

    Differences in polarity as a unifying model.

    1. Either-Or systems: Each of the two poles is either a north or a south pole (= tertium non datur). We find those approaches in mathematics, logic, rationality and methods in general; such conceptualizations are also to be found in zero-sum games – what one side gains, the other loses (rationality, if then Systems, in Cina Lli Si and Han Fei);
    2. As well As (earlier Confucius, Daoism): the magnet as unity consists of the opposites of both poles and the magnet “is” both north pole and south pole. This is analyzed in detail in my Clausewitz interpretation on the basis of war as unity and irrevocable opposition of attack and defence. We find this thinking, especially in Chinese ideas of win-win solutions. Here, competition and conflict in one area do not exclude cooperation in another (Herberg-Rothe 2007, Chinese version 2020.)
    3. Neither North nor South pole exist as identities (Plato’s metaxis, Indian thought) – they are rather dynamic movements in between the opposites (see in detail again Clausewitz’s concept of attack and defense; this understanding is the methodological basis of diversity; Herberg-Rothe 2007; see the French theorists of post-structuralism).
    4. Structure (system theories, Islamic holism): North pole and south pole “construct” a magnetic field outside and inside the materiality of the magnet, a non-material structure.
    5. Process thinking: Here the simplified example of the magnet finds its end – but can be understood beyond the physical analogy easily as movement from the south pole to the north pole and “always further” (sine curve on an ascending x-axis). In this sense, Already Hegel had considered the discovery of polarity as of infinite importance but criticized it because in this model the idea of transition from one pole to the other was missing (Herberg-Rothe 2000 and 2007). Molla Sadra (1571-1636), the most important philosopher of the School of Isfahan, elaborated this progressive circular movement particularly clearly. Although he is mainly regarded as an existential philosopher who denies any essence, he actually postulated a kind of progressive circle as the decisive essence (for an overview see Yousefi 2016, for more details see Rizvi 2021).

    A unifying model – Virtuous Concentric Circles

    Starting from the premise that Western thinking is shaped by the billiard model of international relations and that of all other civilizations by concentric circles and cycles (Herberg-Rothe/Son 2018), the aim is to work out how extensively both models determine our thinking in the respective cultural sphere in order to develop a perspective that includes both sides. In doing so, I do not assume one-dimensional causes for violent action, nor do I assume pure diversity without any explanation of causes. Instead, I work in perspective with virtuous and vicious circles – in these circles, there are several causes, but they are not unconnected to each other but are integrated into a cycle. So far, this methodological approach has probably been applied mainly in the Sahel Syndrome. The methodological approach would involve trying to break vicious circles and transform them into virtuous circles – this is where I would locate the starting point of a new approach to intercultural philosophy.

    Ideally, a virtuous circular perspective would look like this:

    1. Understanding of discourses on how conflicts with cultural/religious differences are justified/articulated.
    2. Attribution of these differences to different concepts of civilization.
    3. Mutual recognition of the same issues in different ways of thinking.
    4. Self-knowledge not only as religion or culture, but as a civilization.
    5. the self-commitment to one’s own civilizational standards, norms (Jaspers 1949 and Katzenstein 2009) etc., which can also contribute to the management of intra-societal and international conflicts.

    At the infinite end of this process would be a kind of mutual recognition of the civilizations of the earth, accompanied by their self-commitment to their own civilizational norms. My colleague Peng Lu from Shanghai University has made the following suggestion: In the 19th century, the Europeans conquered the whole world; in the 20th century, the defeated nations and civilizations had to live with the victorious West; in the 21st century, the civilizations of the earth must finally learn to live together.  This is in my view the task of the century. Solving the problem of ethno-universalism and cultural relativism has nothing to do with wishful thinking, but is the precondition for the survival of humankind in the twenty-first century, unless we want to repeat the catastrophes of the twentieth century on a larger scale.

    References: 

    Baggini, Julian (2018), How the World Thinks. A global history of philosophy. Granta: London.

    Clausewitz, Carl von (2004) On War. Edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret. Princeton: Princeton University Press

    Fukuyama, Francis (2018), Against Identity Politics. The new tribalism and the crisis of democracy. In Foreign Affairs, Sept./Oct. Retrieved from: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/americas/2 018-08-14/against-identity-politics; last accessed, Oct. 3, 2018, 10.21.

    Herberg-Rothe, Andreas (2003/2017), Der Krieg. 2nd ed., Campus: Frankfurt.

    Herberg-Rothe, Andreas and Son, Key-young (2018), Order wars and floating balance. How the rising powers are reshaping our worldview in the twenty-first century. Routledge: New York.

    Herberg-Rothe, Andreas (2023) Toleration and mutual recognition in hybrid Globalization. In: International Studies Journal, Tehran, Print version: September 2023; Volume 20, Issue 2 – Serial Number 78; pp 51-80.

    Also published Online: URL: https://www.isjq.ir/article_178740.html?lang=en; last access 4.11. 2023.

    Herberg-Rothe, Andreas (2024), Lyotard versus Hegel. The violent end of postmodernity. In: Philosophy and Sociology. Belgrade 2024/2025 (forthcoming)

    Jaspers, Karl (1949), Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte. Munich: Piper 1949 (numerous follow-up editions).

    Katzenstein, Peter J (2009). Civilizations in World Politics. Pluralist and pluralist perspectives. Routledge: New York

    Li, Chenyang (2022), “Chinese Philosophy as a World Philosophy”. In: Asian Studies, September 2022,  pp. 39-58.

    Yan, Xuetong. Ancient Chinese thought, modern Chinese power. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011.

    Zakaria, Fareed (2008), The Post-American World, New York/London: W. W. Norton, 2008.

    Zhang, Wei-Wei (2012), The China Wave: Rise of a Civilizing State. Hackensack: World Century Publishing Corporation.

     

    Feature Image Credit: www.ft.com

  • The End of Pluralism in the Middle East

    The End of Pluralism in the Middle East

    A  truly seismic change in the Middle East has occurred.  At its heart is a devil’s bargain – Turkey and the Gulf States accept the annihilation of the Palestinian nation and the creation of a Greater Israel, in return for the annihilation of the Shia minorities of Syria and Lebanon and the imposition of Salafism across the Eastern Arab world.

    This also spells the end for Lebanon and Syria’s Christian communities. Witness the tearing down of all Christmas decorations, the smashing of all alcohol and the forced imposition of the veil on women when the jihadists — who overthrew the government of Bashar al-Assad on Sunday — first took Aleppo a mere two weeks ago.

    The speed of the collapse of Syria took everybody by surprise. Next, a renewed Israeli attack on Southern Lebanon to coincide with a Salafist invasion of the Bekaa Valley seems inevitable, as the Israelis would obviously wish their border with their new Taliban-style Greater Syrian neighbour to be as far North as possible.

    It could be a race for Beirut, unless the Americans have already organised who gets it.

    It is no coincidence that the attack on Syria started the day of the Lebanon/Israel ceasefire. The jihadist forces do not want to be seen to be fighting alongside Israel, even though they are fighting forces which have been relentlessly bombed by Israel, and in the case of Hezbollah are exhausted from fighting Israel.

    The Times of Israel has no compunction about saying the quiet part out loud, unlike the British media:

    In fact, Israeli media is giving a lot more truth about the Syrian rebel forces than British and American media. This is another article from The Times of Israel:

    “While HTS officially seceded from Al Qaeda in 2016, it remains a Salafi jihadi organization designated as a terror organization in the US, the EU and other countries, with tens of thousands of fighters.

    Its sudden surge raises concerns that a potential takeover of Syria could transform it into an Islamist, Taliban-like regime – with repercussions for Israel at its south-western border. Others, however, see the offensive as a positive development for Israel and a further blow to the Iranian axis in the region.”

    Contrast this to the U.K. media, which from the Telegraph and Express to The Guardian has promoted the official narrative that not just the same organisations, but the same people responsible for mass torture and executions of non-Sunnis, including Western journalists, are now cuddly liberals.

    Nowhere is this more obvious than the case of Abu Mohammad Al-Jolani, sometimes spelt Al-Julani or Al-Golani, who, now nominally in charge in Damascus, is being boosted throughout Western media as a moderate leader. He was the deputy leader of ISIS, and the CIA actually has a $10 million bounty on his head! Yes, that is the same CIA. which is funding and equipping him and giving him air support.

    Supporters of the Syrian rebels still attempt to deny that they have Israeli and U.S. support – despite the fact that almost a decade ago there was open Congressional testimony in the U.S.A. that, to that point, over half a billion dollars had been spent on assistance to Syrian rebel forces, and the Israelis have openly been providing medical and other services to the jihadists and effective air support.

    Violates UK Terrorism Act

    One interesting consequence of this joint NATO/Israel support for the jihadist groups in Syria is a further perversion of domestic rule of law. To take the U.K. as an example, under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act it is illegal to state an opinion that supports, or may lead somebody else to support, a proscribed organisation.

    The abuse of this provision by British police to persecute Palestinian supporters for allegedly encouraging support for proscribed organisations Hamas and Hezbollah is notorious, with even tangential alleged references leading to arrest. Sarah Wilkinson, Richard Medhurst, Asa Winstanley, Richard Barnard and myself are all notable victims, and the persecution has been greatly intensified by Keir Starmer.

    Yet Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) is also a proscribed group in the U.K. But both British mainstream media and British Muslim outlets have been openly promoting and praising HTS – frankly much more openly than I have ever witnessed anyone in the U.K. support Hamas and Hezbollah – and not a single person has been arrested or even warned by U.K. police.

     

     

    That in itself is the strongest of indications that Western security services are fully behind the overthrow of the government in Syria.

    For the record, I think it is an appalling law, and nobody should be prosecuted for expressing an opinion either way. But the politically biased application of the law is undeniable.

    When the entire corporate and state media in the West puts out a unified narrative that Syrians are overjoyed to be released by HTS from the tyranny of the Assad regime – and says nothing whatsoever of the accompanying torture and execution of Shias, and destruction of Christmas decorations and icons – it ought to be obvious to everybody where this is coming from.

    Yet – and this is another U.K. domestic repercussion – a very substantial number of Muslims in the U.K. support HTS and the Syrian rebels, because of the funding pumped into U.K. mosques from Saudi and Emirate Salafist sources.

    This is allied to the U.K. security service influence also wielded through the mosques, both by sponsorship programmes and “think tanks” benefiting approved religious leaders, and by the execrable coercive Prevent programme.

    U.K. Muslim outlets that have been ostensibly pro-Palestinian – like Middle East Eye and 5 Pillars – enthusiastically back Israel’s Syrian allies in ensuring the destruction of resistance to the genocide of the Palestinians. Al Jazeera alternates between items detailing dreadful massacre in Palestine, and items extolling the Syrian rebels bringing Israel-allied rule to Syria.

    Among the mechanisms they employ to reconcile this is a refusal to acknowledge the vital role of Syria in enabling the supply of weapons from Iran to Hezbollah. Which supply the jihadists have now cut off, to the absolute delight of Israel, and in conjunction with both Israeli and U.S. air strikes.

    In the final analysis, for many Sunni Muslims both in the Middle East and in the West, the pull seems to be a stronger sectarian hatred of the Shia and the imposition of Salafism, than preventing the ultimate destruction of the Palestinian nation.

    I am not a Muslim. My Muslim friends happen to be almost entirely Sunni. I personally regard the continuing division over the leadership of the religion over a millennium ago as deeply unhelpful and a source of unnecessary continued hate.

    Classic Divide and Rule

    But as a historian, I do know that the Western colonial powers have consciously and explicitly used the Sunni/Shia split for centuries to divide and rule. In the 1830s, Alexander Burnes was writing reports on how to use the division in Sind between Shia rulers and Sunni populations to aid British colonial expansion.

    On May 12, 1838, in his letter from Simla setting out his decision to launch the first British invasion of Afghanistan, British Governor General Lord Auckland included plans to exploit the Shia/Sunni division in both Sind and Afghanistan to aid the British military attack.

    The colonial powers have been doing it for centuries, Muslim communities keep falling for it, and the British and Americans are doing it right now to further their remodelling of the Middle East.

    Simply put, many Sunni Muslims have been brainwashed into hating Shia Muslims more than they hate those currently committing genocide of an overwhelmingly Sunni population in Gaza.

    I refer to the U.K. because I witnessed this first-hand during the election campaign this year in Blackburn [where Murray ran for Parliament.] But the same is true all over the Muslim world. Not one Sunni Muslim-led state has lifted a single finger to prevent the genocide of the Palestinians.

    Their leadership is using anti-Shia sectarianism to maintain popular support for a de facto alliance with Israel against the only groups – Iran, Houthi and Hezbollah – which actually did attempt to give the Palestinians practical support in resistance. And against the Syrian government which facilitated supply.

    The unspoken but very real bargain is this: The Sunni powers will accept the wiping out of the entire Palestinian nation and formation of Greater Israel, in return for the annihilation of the Shia communities in Syria and Lebanon by Israel and forces backed by NATO (including Turkey).

    There are, of course, contradictions in this grand alliance. The United States’ Kurdish allies in Iraq are unlikely to be happy with Turkey’s destruction of Kurdish groups in Syria, which is what Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gains from Turkey’s very active military role in toppling Syria – in addition to extending Turkish control of oilfields.

    The Iran-friendly Iraqi government will have further difficulty with reconciling the U.S. continuing occupation of swathes of its country, as they realise they are the next target.

    The Lebanese army is under the control of the U.S.A., and Hezbollah must have been greatly weakened to have agreed to the disastrous ceasefire with Israel. Christian fascist militias traditionally allied to Israel are increasingly visible in parts of Beirut, though whether they would be stupid enough to make common cause with jihadists from the North may be open to question.

    But now that Syria has fallen to jihadist rule, I do not rule out Lebanon following very quickly indeed, and being integrated into a Salafist Greater Syria.

    How the Palestinians of Jordan would react to this disastrous turn of events, it is hard to be sure. The British puppet Hashemite Kingdom is the designated destination for ethnically cleansed West Bank Palestinians under the Greater Israel plan.

    What this all potentially amounts to is the end of pluralism in the Levant and its replacement by supremacism. An ethno-supremacist Greater Israel and a religio-supremacist Salafist Greater Syria.

    Unlike many readers, I have never been a fan of the Assad regime or blind to its human rights violations. But what it did undeniably do was maintain a pluralist state where the most amazing historical religious and community traditions – including Sunni (and many Sunni do support Assad), Shia, Alaouites, descendants of the first Christians, and speakers of Aramaic, the language of Jesus – were all able to co-exist.

    The same is true of Lebanon.

    An End of Tolerance

    What we are witnessing is the destruction of that and the imposition of a Saudi-style rule. All the little cultural things that indicate pluralism – from Christmas trees to language classes to winemaking to women going unveiled – have been destroyed in Aleppo and soon perhaps in Damascus and Beirut.

    I do not pretend that there are not genuine liberal democrats among the opposition to Assad. But they have negligible military significance, and the idea that they would be influential in a new government is delusion.

    In Israel, which pretended to be a pluralist state, the mask is off. The Muslim call to prayer has just been banned. Arab minority members of the Knesset have been suspended for criticising Netanyahu and genocide. More walls and gates are built every day, not just in unlawfully occupied territories but in the “state of Israel” itself, to enforce apartheid.

    I confess I once had the impression that Hezbollah was itself a religio-supremacist organisation; the dress and style of its leadership look theocratic.

    Then I came here and visited places like Tyre, which has been under Hezbollah-elected local government for decades, and found that swimwear and alcohol are allowed on the beach and the veil is optional, while there are completely unmolested Christian communities there.

    I will never now see Gaza, but wonder if I might have been similarly surprised by Hamas’s rule.

    It is the United States which is promoting the cause of religious extremism and of the end, all over the Middle East, of a societal pluralism similar to Western norms.

    That is of course a direct consequence of the United States being allied to both the two religio-supremacist centres of Israel and Saudi Arabia.

    It is the U.S.A. which is destroying pluralism, and it is Iran and its allies which defend pluralism. I would not have seen this clearly had I not come here. But once seen, it is blindingly obvious.

    Feature Image: nypost.com

    This article was published earlier in scheerpost.com

    It is republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.

  • Trump followed four years later by Trump: Would America’s trustiness and system of alliances survive?

    Trump followed four years later by Trump: Would America’s trustiness and system of alliances survive?

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  • Women in Afghanistan : The Fight Back

    Women in Afghanistan : The Fight Back

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  • Is Singularity Here ?

    Is Singularity Here ?


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  • India and Myanmar: Two Years After The Coup

    India and Myanmar: Two Years After The Coup


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  • Indian Philosophy and Religion

    Indian Philosophy and Religion

     

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  • An Outside View of the US 2024 Presidential Election

    An Outside View of the US 2024 Presidential Election

    What was the voter turnout?

    The big change is that Harris, so far, has lost 9 million voters since 2020, while Trump has gained only 1.2 million. Harris’s count of lost votes will decline as the final votes come in, but the bigger story remains that Harris lost more votes than Trump gained.

    Voter turnout is NOT final, but it is likely between 153 and 156 million, down from 2020 but still the second-highest percentage turnout in 100 years. At a minimum, 107 million adults did not vote (88 million of whom are “eligible” to vote). Thus, 41% or more of the adult population and 36% of the eligible voters did not vote.

    Using the percentage of voter groups who voted for Trump is misleading.  The news remains that the significant change is the loss of Harris voters.

    What were the economic issues?

    Daily survival has become a serious problem for the bottom 65% due, specifically, to the inflation of grocery items and increasing mortgage payments and rent. Aggregate figures don’t reflect this reality.

    Workers’ actual standard of living was worse under Biden than under Trump.

    Real wages in the US remain lower than they were a half-century ago.

    Are there differences between Democrats and Republicans?

    US electoral parties are NOT like those in Europe – they have always been a different version of bourgeois electoral systems. Both major US parties are corporations, not parties with memberships, ideologies, and programs. They are designed like a marketplace of individuals preening for the Presidency, much like the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, but only held every four years.

    The Democrats turned over their foreign policy to the CNAS group of neo-con warmongers who will now be displaced.

    The Republicans are also not an actual party; Trump proved this, and what is next for Republicans post-Trump is also uncertain.

    What are the class shifts in the US?

    There is a new stratification of the bourgeoisie, with billionaires as a new factor. The increasingly dominant discourse amongst the capitalist class has the wherewithal to exert its influence.

    Fifty Billionaires put 2.5 billion US dollars, 45% of the 5.5 billion total, into the Presidential election. Of this, 1.6 billion went to the Republicans, 750 million to the Democrats, and the rest to both. The total spent on the election, in all races, was 16 billion, a sign of a kleptocracy, not a thriving democracy.

    washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2024/biggest-campaign-donors-election-2024

    There is a concerted effort by a section of libertarian tech billionaires, including Thiel and Musk, to have their hands directly on the levers of the state to control the race for global domination of AI. They believe that they alone should control the advances in the AI space for the world and that the initial next step is what is called Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). These megalomaniacs believe this will begin the control of humans by machine intelligence and, perhaps, in their perverse dreams, the end of humanity.

    A growing number of lesser capitalists, such as multimillionaires, are now being lumped into the upper middle class and the wealthiest one-third of voters. One very important trend to note is that in the last fifteen years, the richest one-third have switched allegiance from Republicans to Democrats.

    Why did Harris lose 6 to 9 million votes?

    Workers were worse off, wages did not keep up, and inflation left a long, lingering impact.  Some of the youth vote left for economic reasons. Others were disillusioned and demoralised by the full-throated support of the genocidal war in Gaza by the Democratic Party. Muslims, while a small group, voted for a third party or Trump.

    Despite the fabrications of the Democratic Party corporate handlers, Harris was, in fact, inauthentic, unlikeable, shallow, and could not mask her history as a prosecutor who spent her life attacking the rights of the poor.

    Dissatisfaction with many Western elected parties is growing – Conservative in the UK, Centre Right in France, right-wing in Germany – all thrown out. Biden left a demoralised Democratic Party and left too late.

    Fear-mongering about fascism was core to the rhetoric of the Democrats, even though no one knows what the term means.  Some voters became annoyed at the harassment by the liberals to vote for them since they were the last rail of defence against fascism. Many people did not believe Trump was, in fact, a fascist, nor did they believe that every one of their family members who listened to Trump was a fascist.

    Apathy is growing and remains a real issue.

    Probably over a million stayed at home as they could not stomach the Democratic Party’s gleeful support for Genocide. Trump’s victory in Michigan was certainly due to this issue.

    Harris played to and fawned over the war criminal Dick Cheney, the architect of the invasion of Iraq and a historic right-wing enemy of the Democrats.  We don’t know how many voters left in disgust. 

    Why did Trump gain votes?

    Trump took advantage of working-class dissatisfaction. Even so, he only gained less than 2 million total new votes. There is no evidence of a widescale shift of working-class votes to the Republicans in this election.

    Working-class women voted for local candidates supporting abortion but voted for Trump for economic and other reasons. Others voted on local issues important to them and then voted for Trump as they felt that despite his unsavoury behaviours, he was more committed to “shaking things up”.

    The billionaire class made sure that Trump had ample funds. Elon Musk’s America Pac spent $118 million handling field operations for the Trump campaign, an unusual role for a super PAC.

    From 2008 to 2020, there was a decline in the percentage of voters supporting the Democrats amongst the bottom 1/3 of income earners in the US.

    ft.com/content/6de668c7-64e9-4196-b2c5-9ceca966fe3f

     

    Too little data is available now to provide a detailed answer about the relatively insignificant number of voters who voted Democrat in 2020 and Republican in 2024.

    What is the assessment of the new cabinet positions announced?

    Trump’s sixteen appointments to date are all vocal supporters of genocide in Palestine. In the United States, there are both Jewish and Christian Zionists. Trump has appointed several Christian Zionists. The majority are China hawks.

    When analysed from a US statecraft point of view, many are extremely underwhelming candidates. These include:

    • Secretary of State: Senator Marco Rubio: He is a rigid, fierce anti-communist.
    • Secretary of Defense: Pete Hegseth, an Army National Guard veteran and Fox News host: He is divisive and has no high-level military experience.
    • Attorney General: Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida: He has no experience in the Department of Justice and has had past legal controversies.
    • Director of National Intelligence: Former Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. She has no intelligence background but is perhaps less rigid on international issues, a non-interventionist, and has a friendship with Indian Prime Minister Modi.
    • Ambassador to the United Nations: Representative Elise Stefanik of New York. She is an extreme Zionist, has near zero diplomatic experience, and has focused only on domestic issues, but is loyal to Trump.
    • Secretary of Homeland Security: South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. She lacks national government experience, and her actions have veered toward radical anti-federalism.

    Due to some of these appointments, US stature in international affairs will likely diminish.

    Trump has brilliantly dismissed the extremely dangerous Pompeo. He has made it clear that few from the first inner group of his cabinet and advisors will return. The world will not miss them. Yet there is little evidence to suggest that Trump has the capacity to lead any group successfully for even an intermediate period. He is known for turning on people and turning them against each other.

    How do we interpret the vote?

    A significant section of the working class understandably abandoned the Democrats in this election.

    There is not a major right-wing shift in US attitudes, but there is a real base for the right.

    The Democratic Party elite is completely divorced from the masses. Parading the loyal royal cultural elite like Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and Bruce Springsteen reeked of wealth, opulence, and tone-deafness.

    Apathy should not be understated. At least 88 million didn’t vote, with a further 19 million disenfranchised.

    Third parties are structurally prevented from winning even a single state in a presidential election. They are structurally locked out of Congress. The United States has locked in a two-party system. Most voters have been captured by this belief.

    Small exceptions to this are wealthy candidates like Ross Perot in 1992 and Robert Kennedy Junior.

    There was huge intimidation at the end against supporters of third-party candidates, which depressed their vote even more than usual. In this just-held election, the Party for Liberation and Socialism Candidate Claudia Cruz received 134,348 votes so far.  Claudia Cruz’s 134 thousand votes is the highest number of votes for an explicit communist in American history. It exceeds the CPUSA’s William Z. Foster’s previous record of 120,000 votes in 1932. The 1932 vote was a higher percentage of the population as the US was smaller in 1932. These facts are a reminder of the long-term campaign of anti-communism within the US.

    Capital is clearly happy with Trump’s win, as evidenced by the November 6th celebration rally on Wall Street. They disagree with the liberal hype that he will bring an end to American society.

    Despite the lies of the liberals, the facts are that Trump formally initiated the New Cold War on China. His inner team are more fiercely anti-China than the Democrats, who are more bound to the Ukraine War.

    Trump has fewer restraints, controlling the Senate, House, Supreme Court, and Presidency.

    He could well launch a Third World War.  It would be a mistake to underestimate this danger.

    Other things people outside the US should know

    There is a tendency in some parts of the Global South to have a simplistic and false analysis that any enemy of the liberals is a friend of the Global South. This is a severely flawed argument. The imperialist far-right is not a good guy, a cultural conservative who wants to protect families and cultural life. Inside the US, conservative culture is tightly tied to slavery and genocide. It is misogynistic, racist, militaristic, and reactionary. We should not confuse the histories of Iran, Turkey, India, Ghana, and China with those of the US.

    Welcoming divisions in the enemy camp is often entirely correct. But Communists, socialists, and true democrats do not support reactionary views and always side with the people, not the far-right ideologues.

    There is also great confusion about MAGA and MAGA-Communism. First, Make America Great Again (MAGA) means returning (the second “A” in MAGA) to the full glory of the US industrial past. But what was that past? It was, in fact, the total economic, political, military, and racial subordination of the peoples of the Global South states to the US. It was the century of humiliation in China. This is not a return to be welcomed by history. MAGA is a profoundly reactionary, unacceptable outcome and concept.

    One of the greatest poets in the United States is Langston Hughes. One of his poems was called “Let America Be America Again.” But this was a parody as the actual statement was made in the refrain, “America Never Was America to Me”. The meaning of this poem was the false portrayal of the United States as ever having a glorious past, which was never true for the slaves or the working class.

    Second, there are a handful of personalities in the US who have taken the great word communism and sullied it with the idea of returning to this falsely idealised America. The old “strong” American industry was built on the backs of low-paid workers in the mines in Africa and elsewhere.

    Desiring a real communist path is a good thing. But tying it to an imperialist past, a past of violence, with reactionary views is the opposite path taken by Lenin, Mao, and Fidel.

    There is also a dangerous tendency to simply reject the liberal concepts of identity politics and embrace the values of far-right conservatism while lacking scientific thinking about the plight of women and other vulnerable groups.

    The CPC led the country in the first national Soviets in Ruijin in the struggle to abolish the prejudices of feudalism and emancipate women and national minorities in China. However, these rights have not yet been achieved in many countries, as there has been no communist revolution.

    True Communism is the path to advancing the overall interests of the working class in all countries, including women, national minorities, and other vulnerable groups.

    The Republican voter base in class-terms is the lower-middle class, which is overwhelmingly white, suburban, rural. It is amplified by fundamentalist Christians and the Republican regional strongholds.

    There are six “ideological” trends, all extreme right, in the Republican camp:

    1. Populist demagogues
    2. Extreme Libertarians
    3. Fanatical Christian-Zionists
    4. Virulent anti-communists
    5. Dangerous AI-obsessed Tech billionaires
    6. Complex conservatives

    The US economy will continue to perform poorly but better than the rest of the West. It will continue to use its dollar hegemony, reinforced with sanctions, to remove hundreds of billions from the Global South and to force Europe, Australia, and Japan to subordinate their economic interests to those of the US.

    The actual US budget for the military was $1.8 trillion last year. Significant cuts seem improbable.

    There is now a permanent Black upper middle class that produces a Black mis-leadership. This mis-leadership group has created two decades of Black war criminals and apologists for empire. The rise of this mis-leadership gang, however, should not overshadow the fact that most blacks remain oppressed and exploited.

    The anti-immigrant politics in the U.S. is directed primarily at undocumented immigrants from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.

    But there is a false belief that all immigrants in the US are working class and progressive – it is just not true. An important stratum of non-working-class immigrants in the US are amongst the most virulent defenders of US atrocities in the world.

    There is a belief that there is a conspiracy of some secret group of members of the military and government that decide most things, which they call the Deep State. This is a lazy concept. It denies that all states have a class character and permanent army. In the US, it has been estimated that over 5 million people have security clearance, and many have near-lifetime employment. There is no need for conspiracy theories. The US does have an advanced state that functions on behalf of capital. This state manages the affairs of the often-competing large capitalists and is now increasingly primarily favouring the billionaires amongst the capitalist class. Thus, a better way to see the US State is through the lens of Mao, Lenin, and Marx and not as some inexplicable conspiracy.

    There is a special relationship between the US and Israel, both extreme white-settler states. In the US alone, over 30 House, Senate, and cabinet members are dual citizens of the US and Israel. Israel does not control the US, BUT they are socially a duopoly.

    They are the CORE of Ring 1 of the Global North, the core of the imperialist bloc, along with the UK, Canada, and Australia.

    The long-term trend is clear – bourgeois liberal democracy is failing globally.

    What is the domestic consequence of the vote?

    Since 2016, the very top of the capitalist class has led and mobilised a neo-fascist movement. Increasing levels of force and lawfare will now be used internally inside the US.

    Trump himself is not a fascist per se. He is super-egoistic and believes he can act with near absolute impunity.

    But he is riding on, and a beneficiary of changing class phenomena.

    Fascism is not so much an ideology as a structural class relationship in which the lower-middle class, which has a revanchist ideology, is mobilized by big capital during a period of internal and external disequilibrium.

    The New York Times and Financial Times use the word fascism as a scare tactic to maintain their role and influence in the state. Neo-fascism is a more precise word than fascism at this moment to describe the changes in the US.

    Historically, there are a few things that are necessary to define a fully fascist state in imperialist countries. One is that the state uses methods of control it would typically use only for its colonies and neo-colonies, i.e., extreme widespread violence and force.  The other is that they resort to the overthrow of the constitution.

    The Constitution is unlikely to be changed directly. However, the original Constitution, an eighteenth-century document, has many gaps that can be exploited.

    Radical and extreme legal changes are thus probable. There will be a reversal of 70 years of civil rights.

    Overall, it remains to be seen how far the capitalist class is willing to go.

    State capacity in many areas other than defence and border police will be diminished. Trump 1 saw big cuts in the State Department.  Even with Rubio present, it is unlikely to be refunded to its old level.

    The Billionaires will play a direct role in key tasks, from meeting Zelensky to chain-sawing government departments. Some departments, like Agriculture, Education, and Health and Human Services, are, in fact, decrepit, corrupt and dysfunctional. But a billionaire-led revamp will result in an unsavoury privatized equally dysfunctional capitalist state bureaucracy.

    Trump is committed to a long-term isolationist strategy.  But the US has over 900 military bases abroad. It has fully supported the expansion of Israel’s War in the Middle East, building up its military in the process.

    Trump will not block the infrastructure projects that were voted in during Biden. The US recognises that its lost manufacturing capacity is a strategic deficit in military supply.

    The brunt of the cutbacks will still increase the suffering of the 150 million working-class poor in the US.

    The Left will be even more subjected to severe repression. Rubio is salivating.

    What are the possible international consequences?

    Despite the recent Zelensky meeting, the US will probably push a cease-fire and curtail the Ukraine war. Crimea is off the table. The current military lines will be the starting point. Doing this could reduce the immediate danger of a nuclear war. In April of this year, both Vance and Rubio voted against the 95-billion-dollar US military aid bill for Ukraine.

    With Israel, there are three main possibilities:

    1. Trump curtails Netanyahu and calls for an end to Lebanon, no regime change in Iran, and an unjust peace agreement.
    2. He falls prey to the Christian Zionists and continues Genocide against Palestine.
    3. He goes against his no-war statements and approves an escalation with Iran.

    We don’t know, but option one is not impossible. Trump wants a deal with Saudi Arabia.

    A few days ago, MBS was forced to call it a Genocide, a rare statement from a long-term US ally.

    With China, there are also three possibilities:

    1. Trump says tariffs are his favourite word in the English language and wants to increase them and eliminate domestic taxes.
    2. Rubio and other super China-hating cabinet members push him to escalate.
    3. US national security elements and US tech moguls like Peter Thiel push US military preparations.

    On the question of Taiwan, some in the Global South fall for the liberal messaging soundbite in the West that Trump, the dealmaker, will sell Taiwan for a fee. This would bring strong resistance from the US military and large sections of the anti-communist members of his core group. This is a very unlikely case.

    The world should not be confused if Trump does initiate a ceasefire in Ukraine and pressures Netanyahu to curtail the Genocide. Neither of these actions reverses the long-term trend of the US towards militarization against China. Nothing Trump does will turn around anaemic long-term US economic growth.

    China is still on target to surpass the US in current exchange rate GDP within 10 years.

    The US state is still on a long-term course to use its self-perceived military supremacy to destroy what it perceives as the Eurasian threat. It remains committed to dismembering the Russian Federation and overthrowing the CPC. The imperialists believe this is the path to a thousand-year reign of unilateral power.

    The US will continue, unabated, its strategy of seeking nuclear primacy and what is called the “counterforce” strategy, which plans on the use of a first strike or launch of nuclear weapons. Evidence of these dangerous changes in US military strategy can be seen by their unilateral withdrawal from the following treaties:

    • 2002 (Bush): the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty.
    • 2019 (Trump): the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty
    • 2020 (Trump): the Open Skies treaty

    Tucker Carlson has Trump’s ear for now and is not a proponent of military conflict.

    In 2023, a four-star general, Minihan, claimed that the US would be in a hot war with China in 2025. These are not accidental statements.

    It is unknown if Rubio, some of the far-right libertarians, and CNAS-influenced military forces can overcome Trump’s dislike of military conflict.

    The US is likely to increase its attention on Latin America and increase support for the far right like Bolsonaro and Milei.

    Large-scale aid to Africa is not likely to happen. The Angola railway project is now improbable.

    Final comments

    The US state is still on a long-term course to use its self-perceived military supremacy to destroy the Eurasian threat.

    The US has adopted counterforce and nuclear supremacy as its prime military strategy.

    The threat of war has not changed due to a new administration. Only, perhaps, the speed at which it will be accomplished.

    The economic and political assaults against the US working class will escalate, especially against progressives.

    The state will continue to tighten its grip on the so-called bourgeois democratic freedoms by further restricting voting rights, civil rights, and freedom of speech.

     

    This article was published earlier on MRonline 
    The article is republished underCreative Commons  Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

    Creative Commons License

     

     

  • China and the Sunset of the International Liberal Order

    China and the Sunset of the International Liberal Order

         

    Rise of Multipolar World Order – www.newsvoyagernet.com

           The irrational amounts that the Soviet Union allocated to its defense budget not only represented a huge burden on its economy, but imposed a tremendous sacrifice on the standard of living of its citizens. Subsidies to the rest of the members of the Soviet bloc had to be added to this bill.

             Such amounts were barely sustainable for a country that, as from the first half of the 1960s, was subjected to a continuous economic stagnation. This situation became aggravated by the strong decline of oil prices, USSR’s main export, since the mid 1980s. The reescalation of the Cold War undertaken by Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, particularly the latter, put in motion an American military buildup, that could not be matched by Moscow.

             With the intention of avoiding the implosion of its system, Moscow triggered a reform process that attained none other than accelerating such outcome. Indeed, Mikhail Gorbachev opened the pressure cooker hoping to liberate, in a controlled manner, the force contained in its interior. Once liberated, however, this force swept away with everything on its path. Initially came its European satellites, subsequently Gorbachev’s power base, and, finally, the Soviet Union itself. The Soviet system had reached the point where it could not survive without changes, but neither could assimilate them. In other words, it had exhausted its survival capacity.

              Without a shot being fired, Washington had won the Cold War. The exuberant sentiment of triumph therein derived translated into the “end of history” thesis. Having defeated its ideological rival, liberalism had become the final point in the ideological evolution of humanity. If anything, tough, the years that followed to the Soviet implosion were marred by trauma and conflict. In the essential, however, the idea that the world was homogenizing under the liberal credo was correct.

             On the one hand, indeed, the multilateral institutions, systems of alliances and rules of the game created by the United States shortly after World War II, or in subsequent years, allowed for a global governance architecture. A rules based liberal international order imposed itself over the world. On the other hand, the so-called Washington Consensus became a market economy’s recipe of universal application. This homogenization process was helped by two additional factors. First, the seven largest economies that followed the U.S., were industrialized democracies firmly supportive of its leadership. Second, globalization in its initial stage acted as a sort of planetary transmission belt that spread the symbols, uses, and values of the leading power.

             The new millennium thus arrived with an all-powerful America, whose liberal imprint was homogenizing the planet. The United States had indeed attained global hegemony, and Fukuyama’s end of history thesis seemed to reflect the emerging reality.

    But things turned out to be more complex than this, and the history of the end of history proved out to be a brief one. In a few years’ time, global “Pax Americana” began to be challenged by the presence of a powerful rival that seemed to have emerged out of the blue: China. How had this happened?

             Beginning the 1970s, Beijing and Washington had reached a simple but transformative agreement. Henceforward, the United States would recognize the Chinese Communist regime as China’s legitimate government. Meanwhile, China would no longer seek to constrain America’s leadership in Asia. By extension, this provided China with an economic opening to the West. Although it would be only after Deng Xiaoping’s arrival to power, that the real meaning of the latter became evident.

             In spite of the multiple challenges encountered along the way, both the United States and China made a deliberate effort to remain within the road opened in 1972. Their agreement showed to be not only highly resilient, but able to evolve amid changing circumstances. The year 2008, however, became an inflexion point within their relationship. From then onwards, everything began to unravel. Why was it so?

             The answer may be found in a notion familiar to the Chinese mentality, but alien to the Western one – the shi. This concept can be synthesized as an alignment of forces able to shape a new situation. More generally, it encompasses ideas such as momentum, strategic advantage, or propensity for things to happen. Which were, hence, the alignment of forces that materialized in that particular year? There were straightforward answers to that question: The U.S.’ financial excesses that produced the world’s worst financial crisis since 1929; Beijing’s sweeping efficiency in overcoming the risk of contagion from this crisis; China’s capability to maintain its economic growth, which helped preventing a major global economic downturn; and concomitantly, the highly successful Beijing Olympic games of that year, which provided the country with a tremendous self-esteem boost.

             The United States, indeed, had proven not to be the colossus that the Chinese had presumed, while China itself turned out to be much stronger than assumed. This implied that the U.S. was passing its peak as a superpower, and that the curves of the Chinese ascension and the American decline, were about to cross each other. Deng Xiaoping’s advice for future leadership generations, had emphasized the need of preserving a low profile, while waiting for the attainment of a position of strength. In Chinese eyes, 2008 seemed to show that China was muscular enough to act more boldly. Moreover, with the shi in motion, momentum had to be exploited.

             Beijing’s post-2008 assertiveness became much bolder after Xi Jinping’s arrival to power in 2012-2013. China, in his mind, was ready to contend for global leadership. More to the point within its own region, China’s centrality and the perception of the U.S. as an alien power, had to translate into pushing out America’s presence.

    Challenged by China, Washington reacted forcefully. Chinese perceptions run counter to the fact that the U.S.’ had been a major power in East Asia since 1854, which translated into countless loss of American lives in four wars. Moreover, safeguarding the freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, a key principle within the rules based liberal international order, provided a strong sense of staying power. This was reinforced by the fact that America’s global leadership was also at stake, thus requiring not to yield presence in that area for reputational reasons. The containment of Beijing’s ascendancy, became thus a priority for Washington.

             However, accommodating two behemoths that feel entitled to pre-eminence is a daunting task. Specially so, when one of them feels under threat of exclusion from the region, and the other feels that its emergence is being constrained. On top, both remain prisoners of their history and of their national myths. This makes them incapable of looking at the facts, without distorting them with the subjective lenses of their perceived sense of mission and superiority.

             War ensuing, under those circumstances, is an ongoing risk. But if war is a possibility, Cold War is already a fact. This implies a multifaceted wrestle in which geopolitics, technology, trade, finances, alliances, and warfare capabilities are all involved. And even if important convergent interest between them still remains in place, ties are being cut by the day. As a matter of fact, if in the past economic interdependence helped to shield from geopolitical dissonances, the opposite is the case today. Indeed, a whole array of zero-sum geopolitical controversies are rapidly curtailing economic links.

             The U.S., particularly during the Biden administration, chose to contain China through a regional architecture of alliances and by way of linking NATO with Indo-Pacific problems and selective regional allies. The common denominator that gathers them together is the preservation of the rules based liberal international order. An order, threatened by China’s geostrategic regional expansionism.

     

     

     

    However, China itself is not short of allies. A revisionist axis, that aims at ending the rules based liberal international order, has taken shape. The same tries to throw back American power and to create its own spheres of influence. This axis represents a competing center of gravity, where countries dissatisfied with the prevailing international order can turn to. Together with China two additional Asia-Pacific powers, Russia and North Korea, are part of this bloc.

    Trump’s return to the White House might change the prevailing regional configuration of factors. Although becoming more challenging to Beijing from a trade perspective, he could substantially weaken not only the rules based liberal international order, but the architecture of alliances that contains China. The former, because the illiberal populism that he represents is at odds with the liberal order. The latter, not only because he could take the U.S. out of NATO, but because his transactional approach to foreign policy, which favors trade and money over geopolitics, could turn alliances upside down.

    The rules based liberal international order, which became universal over the ashes of the Soviet Union, could now be facing its sunset. This, not only because its main challenger, China, may strengthen its geopolitical position in the face of its rival alliances’ disruption, but, more significantly, because the U.S. itself may cease to champion it.

    Feature Image Credit: www.brookings.edu

     

  • The Cultural Revolution from the Right: From the Democratic Concept of the People to its Ethnic-religious Understanding

    The Cultural Revolution from the Right: From the Democratic Concept of the People to its Ethnic-religious Understanding

    Despite all the real political problems we face, it is essential for the twenty-first century to defend the equality of all people, regardless of biological differences such as gender or ethnicity. It is not our biology that defines us as human beings, but our morality.
    According to Dominique Moisi, the Western states are consumed with fear of decline, the Islamic-Arab world is full of despair at unfulfilled promises, and East and Southeast Asia are full of hope for a better life. These global political sentiments are largely responsible for the escalation of conflicts, the disintegration of social cohesion and the spread of violence. 
    More than 50 years ago, a cultural revolution from the left shook the whole world. In the USA, there were demonstrations against the Vietnam War, and the hippie movement gathered hundreds of thousands in search of a new lifestyle and attitude to life. Flower, power, love was the motto of the legendary Woodstock. In Germany, young people turned against old traditions and the concealment of their parents’ and grandparents’ guilt under fascism. But here, too, the double face of the youth movement became apparent: when they celebrated the North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh in their demonstrations, they were in no way aware of the political practice in North Vietnam. This process was even more dramatic during the Chinese Cultural Revolution when the youth were mobilised to ultimately legitimise the claim to power of the “Great Leader” Mao-TseTong. The lesson of that period was that a cultural revolution must precede political change. For some time now, a cultural revolution from the right has been following this pattern. It is characterised on the one hand by social developments in polarised societies, and on the other by a targeted and strategic discourse on the part of the new right. Without underestimating the importance of personalities such as former and newly elected President Trump, as well as Erdogan in Turkey and Putin in Russia (and many others) for this development, they have only been able to achieve such success because they have tapped into the “zeitgeist”. According to Dominique Moisi, the Western states are consumed with fear of decline, the Islamic-Arab world is full of despair at unfulfilled promises, and East and Southeast Asia are full of hope for a better life. These global political sentiments are largely responsible for the escalation of conflicts, the disintegration of social cohesion and the spread of violence.
    In the Western world, instead of recognising the equality of other civilisations, nations and states, the “others” were blamed for the loss of the “white man’s” superiority. The ideology of the white man’s burden to educate the uneducated and indigenous peoples of the world, developed at the beginning of the last century, was revived after the fall of the Soviet Union, but could no longer be sustained with the rise of the others and the newly industrialised nations. However, a dilemma arose – if the success of the others was attributed to them, they would be strengthened and the whites would be even less able to maintain their own sense of superiority. So people looked for internal others to blame for their own decline. This is at the heart of the cultural revolution from the right. It is explained by the fear of no longer being able to maintain the supposed superiority of the “white man” if, for example, a country like Indonesia (i.e. no longer just Japan and China) overtakes Germany’s gross domestic product around 2030. Meanwhile, the US, Germany and many other European countries are not only no longer relatively superior, but parts of the US, for example, are at levels that used to be ascribed only to developing countries. And scapegoats are easy to find and, above all, interchangeable – sometimes it can be emancipated women, migrants, the “elites”, the Chinese, Africans, African-Americans, or anyone who is different. Trump’s statement that migrants are taking “black jobs” from US Americans reveals the core of this ideology: the MAGA movement is the best illustration of this development. Despite Trump’s irrationality and narrow-mindedness, “Make America Great Again” can only take hold if many people fear decline or have already experienced it. Like the masterminds of the cultural revolution on the right, they are trying to conquer the more rural regions first.
    The reference to ethnic pluralism is also one of the defining characteristics of the New Right. The right of all cultures and ethnic groups to exist is unconditionally recognised, but only as long as people remain among themselves or on the territory intended for them. Trump’s idea of expelling millions of Latinos after winning the election corresponds perfectly with the German right’s idea of enforcing re-migration. In Germany, Carl Schmitt and Martin Heidegger, Ernst Jünger and Oswald Spengler, and even Nietzsche, are relativised in order to legitimise the cultural revolution of the right. Antonio Gramsci, actually a progressive Marxist, whose concept of achieving cultural hegemony in the “pre-political space” is pursued by the Right as “metapolitics”, gains central importance.
    At its core, however, the new right is about undermining human equality – in its view, we are only equal to our own nation or religion and gender. This exclusionary equality only with one’s own kind is at the heart of the right’s cultural revolution, whose ideal model is itself based on hierarchical notions, a graded dignity. Such attempts to undo the gains of the struggle for equality in a counter-revolution can be found all over the world – whether in nationalism, ethnocentrism, misogyny, cultural relativism (“they just have a different culture”) or thinly veiled racism.
    The only thing “new” about this right-wing movement is that it uses different terms. The New Right concentrates on the “battle for the heads”, leaving the battles for the streets and, in some cases, the parliaments to other groups of the extreme right. The storming of the Capitol and the German Bundestag were such actions of the extreme right. It must be admitted that the whole world is in turmoil. At its core, however, the new right is about undermining human equality – in its view, we are only equal to our own nation or religion and gender. This exclusionary equality only with one’s own kind is at the heart of the right’s cultural revolution, whose ideal model is itself based on hierarchical notions, a graded dignity. Such attempts to undo the gains of the struggle for equality in a counter-revolution can be found all over the world – whether in nationalism, ethnocentrism, misogyny, cultural relativism (“they just have a different culture”) or thinly veiled racism. It is also marked by the revival of toxic masculinity (Raewen Connel) through the MAGA movement and in particular Trump’s enthusiasm for the wrestling mentality and martial arts. Opinions can be divided on these as sports, but they have no place in politics and point to an absolutely exaggerated and violent masculinity that Trump embodies. These political discourses are used to win elections in the West. In one sentence, the New Right shifts the concept of the democratic people to the ethno-religious people.
    When the few people of Pegida (Patriotic Europeans to defend the Abendland) in Germany shout into the camera: “We are the people”, they are turning the slogan of the democratic revolution of 1989 into an ethno-nationalist revolution. From the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, we have witnessed this transformation from the democratic to the ethnic concept of the people. Despite all the real political problems we face, it is essential for the twenty-first century to defend the equality of all people, regardless of biological differences such as gender or ethnicity. It is not our biology that defines us as human beings, but our morality.
    Feature Image Credit: Equality Trust
    from ‘The Link Between Inequality and the Far-Right’ – https://equalitytrust.org.uk
    The far-right has always been part of politics. The current global wave of far-right populist political movements began in the late 1970s, grew in the 1990s, and accelerated dramatically in the late 2000s. It has mirrored a sharp increase in inequality across developed economies, the globalisation of neoliberal economics, and the creation of an international super-rich.