Imperialism’s Junior Partners
Published on The Bullet, Socialist Project’s E-Bulletin No. 1262, by Patrick Bond, May 31, 2016.
On May 12, Brazil’s democratic government, led by the Workers’ Party (PT), was the victim of a coup. What will the other BRICS countries (Russia, India, China, and South Africa) do? Will they stand by as the reactionaries who took power in Brasilia pivot closer to Western powers, glad to warm Dilma Rousseff’s seat at the BRICS summit in Goa, India in five months’ time? Or take a stronger line, following the lead of Latin American progressive countries (Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua and El Salvador)? … //
… BRICS and Empire:
South Africa’s chief foreign policy spokesperson Clayson Monyela responded to Kodwa’s accusation with assurances that South Africa’s relations with the United States “are strong, they’re warm, and cordial.” But Kodwa’s cry of imperialism, in light of the Brazilian coup, has struck a nerve. Indeed, the argument that Rousseff’s ouster demonstrates that the purportedly anti-imperialist BRICS are under sustained attack by U.S. empire is being repeated in a number of corners. Commentators like Eric Draitser, Pepe Escobar, Paul Craig Roberts and Hugo Turner, along with officials from Venezuela and Cuba, all make this claim.
A founder of Brazil’s heroic Movement of Landless Workers (MST), João Pedro Stedile, was asked by Il Manifesto about why “a group of deputies from right-wing organizations went to Washington before the last elections.” He replied, “Temer will arrange his government in order to allow the U.S. to control our economy through their companies… Brazil is part of the BRICS, and another goal is that it can reject the South-South alliance.”
Another version of this anti-imperialist framing was heard at the South African Black Consciousness movement’s Black First Land First launch conference on May 13:
“Brazil and South Africa are seen by the Western imperialist forces as the weak link in the BRICS chain. The strategy of imperialism is to get rid of presidents who support the BRICS process. Imperialism works with internal opposition parties to effect regime change.”
The eloquent South African commentator Siphamandla Zondi, who directs the Institute for Global Dialogue (one of South Africa’s main foreign policy institutes), also shares this view. Zondi defends the BRICS project and disputes the argument put forth by myself and others that the BRICS actually serve a “sub-imperialist” role in the global economy – that they are fully complicit in reproducing inequality both within their own countries and between others in the Global South. In a challenge posted on Facebook he called for observers to recognize that “imperialism has, in the modern age, taken on racism, crude capitalism and patriarchy as its forms.”
No to the Coup, No to Imperialism: … //
… Neoliberal Multilateralism: … //
… Sub-Imperialism: … //
… (full text, hyper-links, related reading, comments).
Links:
World’s longest rail tunnel to open in Switzerland under Alps, on The Guardian, by Philip Oltermann, May 31, 2016: EU heads to take 57km maiden voyage in €11bn Gotthard base tunnel on Wednesday, June 1;
Why Ed Snowden can’t get a Fair Trial in your National Security State, on Informed Comment, by Juan Cole, May 31, 2016: former US Attorney General Eric Holder said in an interview that what NSA whistle blower Edward Snowden did was illegal but added
We can certainly argue about the way in which Snowden did what he did, but I think that he actually performed a public service by raising the debate we engaged in and by the changes that we made …;
INDIA: Prepare, the Muslims are Coming, on ZNet, by Badri Raina, May 30, 2016: while Donald Trump forges ahead to be the world’s most powerful CEO and then to keep the world’s Muslims from entering America, India’s own Sangh Parivar “trains” its young saffron shirts to do one better—namely to prepare, rifle and lathi in hand, against our own Muslim Indians …;
President Erdogan knows that visa-free travel for Turkey could solve his ‘Kurdish problem, on The Independent.co.uk, by Robert Fisk, May 29, 2016: Europe’s growing Kurdish diaspora would be vastly increased if the crushed and war-suffering masses of Diyarbakir could find their way to Germany, Denmark and Sweden;
The British Labour Party must admit its Mistake – the treachery of Tony Blair, on Dissident Voice, by John Andrews, May 29, 2016;
The Speech Obama Should Have Given in Hiroshima, on Dissident Voice, by Matt Peppe, May 28, 2016;
PERSONAL HEALTH: What Big Pharma Does Not Want You to Know About the Opioid Epidemic, on AlterNet.org, by Martha Rosenberg, May 26, 2016: the Pharma-driven opioid epidemic may be as big a con as the mortgage housing bubble collapse … also on truth dig;