The hypocrisy of the West that is what — particularly the type exhibited by the US. The leaked slew of military documents on the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks this week, was another stark reminder of the two-faced nature of Americans, who it seems, have become quite adept at the practice of preaching one thing and doing the exact opposite. Contrary to the accepted wisdom, American’s raw actions on the ground frighteningly belie their stated beliefs of democracy, freedom, equality and fraternity.
Killing the Taliban without trial? Concealing civilian deaths? Shock, horror, gasp! But why should the world be shocked at these revelations/allegations? War is brutal. It was never meant to be a pretty phenomenon. The mere fact that a so-called democratic superpower is waging the war does not suggest they are going about it gracefully. Yet the world has a sanitised view of what an American war means. This speaks volumes of the triumph of American propaganda, which has conditioned our perception of the US as a liberator and guardian of democracy. Nothing could be further from the truth.
If we go by the notion that power is not a means but an end in itself, then democracy, itself an ideology which I sincerely believe was originally conceived with good intentions, has been turned into an instrument to spread American dominance in world affairs. In recent times, the US has not pursued and promoted democracy for its laudable ideals but for the power it gives them to control what ironically is known as the “free world”.
Growing up as a teenager in the early nineties, I always wondered why during the wave of multi-partism, which swept across many of Africa’s previously one-party states, the Americans through the IMF insisted on privatisation, among other conditions, to complement the emergent democracies. Since then we have seen democracy being used to legitimise the buy-out of resource-rich industries in African countries by Western corporations.
Prior to this, the approach by the US and the West in general, had basically been to do business with “the devil” at all costs, regardless of whether “the devil” was a well-intentioned statesman or a despot. The latter approach is still preferred in situations which require it, but is generally considered blatantly duplicitous and therefore is covertly executed as those in the DRC and Uganda will tell you. Either way, owing to these approaches of command and control, “independent” Africa has over the last 50 years pawned away much of her economic capital and today we have precious little left. Save for the politicians and the ruling party bigwigs, the rest of us have to be content with the miniscule royalty revenue earned from “our” extractive industries. It is an outrageous state of affairs, really.
You see, the most important war of our time is not so much about who controls the politics but the economy. And here is the catch with America’s version of democracy-made-for-resource-rich-nation-states; it guarantees them the ability to control both the politics and the economy of such states. Precisely because it was never in the interests of the West for Africa to assume economic independence, democracy, which is a more palatable notion than the-doing-business-with-the-devil model, was foisted on us. In territories where the appeal of democracy has been rebuffed, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, a “war on terror” has been the answer.
Curiously, both countries, which have borne the brunt of the war on terror, are staggeringly resource-rich. Iraq’s amount of proven oil reserves are rivalled only by Saudi Arabia’s. Recently, we have been informed that the Americans have during their war campaign in Afghanistan, suddenly stumbled upon nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral reserves, ranging from huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold to critical industrial metals like lithium. That such a vast swathe of minerals would have remained undiscovered all these years, is simply astounding! And since when did soldiers become mining prospectors? It seems to me that the financial incentives for fighting the war on terror very much belie the ideological motives they put across to us!
When I consider the recent history regarding the pursuit for global domination and competition for resources, I am reminded of an African proverb about the man who digs up a grave for his enemy, unaware that he may be digging it for himself. If the US does not change her hypocritical attitude and continues to wage wars premised on spurious charges such as non-existent weapons of mass destruction, she might well be waging war against herself. Terrorism as real and as unconscionable as it may be, is in so many ways a twisted manifestation of defiance by those who choose not the American way, preferring their own ideologies of power, politics, religion and the right to do with their resource wealth as they see fit.
Fighting resource wars under the guise of spreading freedom and democracy is nothing but stinking hypocrisy and if unchecked will lead our civilisation to its ultimate disaster.
The trouble with the politics of global domination is that by fanning wars between competing nations or blocs thereof, it threatens the very basis of our civilisation. As the largest repository of the world’s industrial resources, Africa has a key role to play in averting such a disaster. For one, we should stop mortgaging our key assets to foreign interests, Western or Eastern/ Chinese. We should not stop there but demand a model of progress based on cooperation as opposed to competition. If we can pull this off, we would have managed to halt the damaging effects of American hypocrisy and the wars that accompany it, which in the end, threaten us all.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, July 28th, 2010 at 11:25 pm and is filed under Perspective, News & Politics.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
15 Responses to “It stinks to high heaven…”
Fair comment, although not exactly as I see it, seems a bit one-sided so can you please assist me - how do you apply yourself with the same analytical insight to pressing questions regarding our home, current South Africa? e.g. political attacks on the independence of the judiciary, public officials spending on luxuries, playing of the race card, etc, Malema-speak, whatever you choose is fine with me. It just seems a little too much like USA-bashing, especially under war circumstances, as if that’s the only thing you know about the USA and that’s all there is to know. So, how do you charge the current ruling elite back home? Exactly what warts are included?
As much as I don’t want to hear you say it. I have to face it and deal with it. We all need to hear it but also act responsibly with the information. The good of the idea should not be lost.
Good observations and conclusions, sadly war has never been fought from altruistic reasons but always for domination. Democracy has not changed this anywhere. The biggest shift has to be in each of us to change to peace and communication, working together and enhancing each others’ lives. When I see the interest in violent games on Playstations and the Internet, I despair of humankind.
If the US went to that region to pursue political ends and it costs trillions to keep on doing it, what’s wrong with then finding ways in which this exercise might pay for itself? Or even yield positive financial returns? It makes perfect sense to me.
I fully agree that “we should stop mortgaging our key assets to foreign interests”. I do not agree that we should “demand a model of progress”. What Africa should stop doing is ‘demanding’ anything and everything. Rather, get up from our asses and ‘make progress happen’ rather than demanding it from someone else.
I don’t agree with the Iraq or Afghanistan war either. And I am sure the US would give anything to get out of those wars. But 3000 of their people died on one day (which is quite a few more than the 2000 blacks that died under the whole apartheid regime). What option did they have but go to war? The ANC did too.
I don’t agree with the US bashing in this article. Africa, the middle east, their leaders and all their people have to take respnosibility for their own actions. These are people who easily get into stupid civil wars for one tribal dominance over the other, support despotic leaders who are looters of note. What was so difficult for Sadam to demonstrate to the world that he didn’t have weapons of mass destruction or for the Taliban to expel Bin Laden and his gang if they were more concerned about the welfare of their own people.
“Hypocricy is an homage that vice renders virtue” - La Rocheforecauld. The advent of party representation began political hypocrisy. People lose their political voice when they “elected” political parties to represent them. Political hypocricy wins election, only for popular uprising to topple it.
The advantage of established democracies is that people’s conscience is not locked up in party political prisons. They vote according to their interests, not those of a party - which represents interests of the most powerful with a party.
Ours is the most hypocritical democracy. A party wins elections by using an organising muscle of a trade union. The unions use employee’s time and money to campaign for a political party. The employees’ themselves may not necessarily support the party, or even politics. But when they lose their job they have to join the poor, the majority.
In other words, the poor support their own poverty.
The hypocricy is that union leaders, and “political analysts” have from-time-to-time, to arrogate the right to represent the interests of the poor against their own party, on one hand, while claiming high wages, on the other.
What you are saying about resource exploitation is true, but then, I have often before said that war is all about acquiring land and the resources on them and that war is not about guns any more but about markets. Therefore, to win the war Africa need to change its collective mind about the kind of weapons it use against agressors. The fact that no burglar is ever interested in my technical books is very telling about the prevailing attitude.
Where I am starting to differ from you is that I fail to see the logic in this statement:
“demand a model of progress based on cooperation as opposed to competition”
You are still fighting for scraps from the table when you could be eating your own food from your own table and all it will earn you is the scorn of the one’s controlling the table. No-one likes cry-babies.
I wish Africa would wake up, stop whingeying at the “gross injustices” of “the West” and start doing some development of its own. Africa is sitting with the lion-share of world resources and a vast pool of human capital that it is not using! No-one gave the West a hand up, why should they help Africa? To exploit Africa, they have to make deals with African leaders. There is your real hipocracy, the people you should get angry with: leaders that claim to be for the people whilst selling of your birthright to the West.
@ Jeremiah , A man called Mad Bob Mugabe from a country very close to you has been saying this all along.But we know he is mad.
@ B steyn 3000 americans died on that day but payback is payback. 100000 iraqis died for this alqaeda taliban adventurism.(whats Iraq got to do with it?) Oh another 100000 died in Pakistan and afghanistan. I guess those Iraqis pakistanis and afghans would want to take revenge at some point. At that 30:1 ratio of revenge tehy need to kill a illion americans to make it even
A party politicised mind is tantamount to a poisoned mind. When one ventures out of a political box, which is difficult, he gives himself a chance to take a clear view of real societal issues.
Man is dominant by nature. He is the only animal that wages wars, devises party politics, economic systems, maims, kills, cheats, holds elections, passes laws to constrain his own species, etc.
These are all forms of male domination, that no other animal uses against its own species. Where language fails, man uses force to consolidate dominion, be it in the form of tribal wars, colonial wars, world wars, the church, liberation wars, etc.
Nation-states themselves are political creations that reflect the interests of those involved in their creations. Otherwise there is one human
Can’t believe you.
In a country where millions vote for leadership they know is not competent and turn the other way when that very leadership is fraudulent, corrupt and criminal, but feel happy to destroy all (though it’s not much) that service has delivered?
People still die in our jails and police stations.
I really don’t think most South Africans are any less hypocritical.
But let us agree that all outside Utopia is not black or white, but rather many shades of grey. We all lust after perfection but I’m not sure anyone gets it. I dread to think how the average South African might behave during a full-scale onslaught either as protector or, as victim.
The Germans were not alone in using mustard gas and flame throwers during 2 world wars. It’s called giving as good as you get. Most people on both sides of those wars would have preferred to stay at peace.
Ghana’s Nkrumah, the first professional politician of a de-colonised African state, set the tone of Africa’s post colonial democratic failure when he uttered the fatuously destructive mantra that poverty in Africa was as a result of the politic strata and that consequently, ” African unity is above all a political kingdom, which can only be gained by political means.”
It in disproving this delusion (well, they have all had the ‘political kingdom’ for decades by now) that all his dictatorial followers have blindly wrecked the economic potential of Africa in favour of tribalist partisanship, vote- catching lies to the ignorant and unread and and the cult of political personality and self enrichment -as opposed to sensible economy building and rule of law competence.
I have no idea of Jeremiah’s intellectual credentials but I suggest he reads some 20C history, not issued by the ex-Soviet Union. I am not a particular pro-US person but I am passionately anti-ignorance.
“…American’s raw actions on the ground frighteningly belie their stated beliefs of democracy, freedom, equality and fraternity.”
Actually, in defense of America, I would state that war is messy.
As they say, alls fair in love and war and in the heat of battle, atrocities are committed by both sides. But you are quite right in that, the pretext under which the Bush administration went to war in Iraq was criminal. The pursuit of resources under the guise of spreading democracy is similar to the crusades, except that the crusades where honest in their intentions. In fact, large American anti-war protests occurred just before the Iraq invasion. Bush and his neocon cohorts utterly destroyed America’s image internationally and its going to be a long road to re-gain its credibility.
Placing all the blame of Africa’s economic subjugation squarely on America is unfair.
Consider that much of American foreign policy, peddled through the IMF is also dictated by European, British and other ex-colonial powers with huge economic interests in ex-colonies. Obama had the best advice for Africa - put away your begging bowls!
contd….
….continued…
By the way Jeremiah, America is not evil incarnate. Remember that many western countries supported the apartheid regime. It was American sanctions and diplomatic pressure on these countries with large vested economic interests in SA, that eventually contributed to apartheid’s collapse. Like WW2, many fault the US for not getting involved earlier, but don’t realize that the outcome would have been much different without US involvement.
Economic imperialism is rapidly coming to an end - evident worldwide, from the guerrilla wars in Central America to the international trade treaties and currency negotiations. With the internet and other freedoms it really is a new world order compared to the dark days of colonialism. Africa can finally be hopeful of achieving true independence once more by vigilantly guarding against the corruptive influences of economic imperialism.
why are we blaming the west? Which farmer is stupid enough to sow seeds in unfertile ground? The USA saw an opportunity and it grabbed it…we africans are to blame for what’s happening to us! We vote for leaders we know fully aware are not fit for office - warlords, accused of rape, assassins, psycopaths - and then when things turn out badly (what do u expect) we start whining and pointing fingers at others; when nobody forced us to vote! We chose to live in this misery…the day we decided to kill our brothers and sisters because of their looks, habits, wealth and opinions.
50 years of this…have we learned nothing? Can we really continue to blame the USA…where are all the so called african intellectuals, the african elite?
Africa needs to stop the blame-game, assume its responsibilities and move on. We are so divided, we hate each other for no good reason…so exactly how are we to prosper!?
We must start pointing the fingers at ourselves. We allowed this!
All comments must be approved by our editors, click here to read the editorial guidelines for comments. Please allow some time for our editors to approve your comment after posting.
profile
Jeremiah Kure is a professional working in the corporate governance arena, based in Johannesburg. He is the founder of the Heights We Must Climb movement and a firm believer in a progressive Africa; an Africa not tied to her stereotyped past but one that is steadily reclaiming her dignity and potential in the global space.
If a sliver of South Africa's future can be glimpsed through the prism of the current public-service protests, then the future should be delayed indef...
One of my failings as an optimist is that I have a disproportionate amount of faith in the goodness of people, not least those who are entrusted to le...
Loading ...
Fair comment, although not exactly as I see it, seems a bit one-sided so can you please assist me - how do you apply yourself with the same analytical insight to pressing questions regarding our home, current South Africa? e.g. political attacks on the independence of the judiciary, public officials spending on luxuries, playing of the race card, etc, Malema-speak, whatever you choose is fine with me. It just seems a little too much like USA-bashing, especially under war circumstances, as if that’s the only thing you know about the USA and that’s all there is to know. So, how do you charge the current ruling elite back home? Exactly what warts are included?
(Report abuse)