New World Order Dynamics

On the eve of 2025, the stench of doctoring history, semi-concealed misdeeds, profiteering at the expense of the week and removing/eliminating regimes that prove inconvenient — all in the name of “strategic interests”, “national security”, “human rights” and democracy”—assaults anyone caring to note.  Who gets to define these issues? They are the executive power, legislative order and judicial bearer. 

If not dissolved altogether, NATO should not have expanded after 1991, when the Soviet Union had disintegrated and the Soviet-led Warsaw pact had had collapsed, paving way for a unipolar world as the new order for the next decade and a half. Sowing seeds of discord in Russia, the fourth largest economy, failed. The military alliance went nasty as an expansionist. Regime changes added to its disrepute.

Israel ordering northern Gaza civilians to vacate their homes and hearth for bombing and turning the settlements into a rubble within the bubble of a few hours of destruction rendered 400,000 Palestinians refugees. Pro-Palestinian forces have called it West Asian holocaust that is estimated to cost the local population a setback of 70 years to rebuild and recover the infrastructures and property lost since October 2023. The countries that fund international agencies on the said issues and find themselves in the list of most successful in these aspects of human life have remained silent whether in shock or in support of Israel and its backers can only be speculated. 

The United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand constitute the quartet aligning with the United Kingdom as the “Five Eyes” ruled by English speaking white populations of European descent. Between 1500 and 1650 CE, the Americas saw the native population drop by 90 per cent.

Poor narrative

If you justify yesterday’s colonisation as “contextual”, today’s expansion policies of global hegemons and regional and sub-regional powers might match like flesh and blood with chilling effects. Some are keen on re-writing history based on “contexts”. They argue: “Expansion led to colonisation which, in turn, spread civilisation.” It is like the cruelly insensitive saying, if you have to rape, enjoy it just the same. 

Encouraged, Donald Trump during the presidential campaign in autumn 2024 said Hitler had “some” good points, which could be partially true. But do the Americans and their European cousins employ the same measuring rod when assessing the works of communist leaders, dictators and “semi-democracies” for “some good done” and “few unfortunate bad incidents” perpetrated on people? Is this the essence of humanity and fair, democratic deal?

Chants have rent the international air in the 2020s demanding a fair and balanced world order — not a weird order where discrepancies are the monopoly of the military might with economic prowess and the hapless weak accept hegemony and benevolent benefactors. Fear of migrants colonising the economically successful advanced democracies has hit the hegemons hard. This issue of “immigrant colonisation” is whipped by rightist forces all over Europe — from the UK through France, Italy, Spain, Nordic countries and Germany. 

Those are countries that claim having contributed to many positive changes of their reckoning in the colonised world. Ironically, they seem to forget the contributions made to their countries by immigrants. They contradict the identity politics they promoted in countries targeted for “reforms” they prescribe. A critical dynamic is shaping the world, even as traditional hegemons vainly try holding on to the privileged positions arrogated to themselves since a century. The 1990s were their most comfortable decade, frittered away in smug attitude without preparing for changes being created by new aspirations from the rest of humanity scattered in other countries.

Lust for supreme power is supreme, overriding any other considerations, including ethical issues. The traditionally dominant fight a losing war for retaining the existing order of a few hegemons.  Complete dominance of the world is not possible for any power. An end to the old order has begun, but declining powers catch at a hope against hope. It is not a fightback but delusion fuelling a battle of attrition. Prof. Noam Chomsky, 96 next month, accuses the US government of spawning a “totalitarian culture which has never existed in my lifetime”. He concludes: “American empire is over.”

International Criminal Court is roundly attacked for inconsistency in interpretations of crime against humanity. The speed in which it issued an arrest warrant against Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and the reluctance exhibited in issuing a similar order against Israeli Prime Minister Banjamin Netanyahu put an embarrassing spotlight on the Hague-based agency. INGOs that raised the banner of identity politics and rights are silent over the chanting of anti-immigrant slogans and call for stopping Muslims from being given visas in countries that fund them. Islamophobia is writ large on their faces. 

Irreversible change

The era of Western domination is irreversibly on decline, whose imprint will be clearer and deeper in the ensuing years. Africa rises relentlessly. Arab League and OPEC are in a defiant mood, prone as they are to torpedoing many Western agendas that previously would have gone approved, even if grudgingly. Foreign paid voices will no longer serve effectively.

A new era does not guarantee a better order. Once a slide of disintegration in principles is tolerated, the appeasement emboldens the nearest be beneficiaries to pursue the very methods and exclusive space they criticised previously. It will only mean a new set of hegemons replacing the old ones, born with the seeds of the inevitable future conflicts setting in motion the cycle of the “old out” and the “new in” slogans to rotate through the ages. By the time it dawns on the populations that they have once again been taken for a ride by the unscrupulous, history will have repeated itself for the umpteenth time, spelling fresh spell of mass dissatisfaction.

Colonial narrative is sought to be retained by those who thrived from it. Its proponents discourage voice or space to those wanting to bring the dark to light. Anything to do with new disclosures is termed “orthodox” view, in an attempt to delegitimise or take the sting out of an embarrassing truth being made public. The West wants to reverse the already emerging multipolar world, China’s expanding money power and market reach, and many nations asserting their independence and demanding that they be treated as such at international forums.

(Professor Kharel specialises in political communication.)