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Showing posts from May 8, 2022

The US-China Trade War

The projects, mapped across the Middle East, are an effort to consolidate the influence of American capital and rebuff competition from China by creating a physical, economic bulwark that strengthens American and European supply chains. It is about to hit the Middle East

We Need a Few Good Dictators

A liberal with a different colour. Some countries are not mature, global capitalism, uneven development, imperialism, etc. have nothing to do with the plights of these countries. Thus, Robert Kaplan in this article echoes what some of my white Western students once said: “a benevolent dictator is a good thing for countries the Middle East and Africa,” or what a Canadian suggested when she said “we should stop talking about democracy in those countries.” What those students and Kaplan have in mind when they speak about ‘democracy’ is ‘democracy’ within capitalist social property relations. Capitalism for them is not the fundamental determiner and the fundamental problem.  Some countries are just unfit or ‘we’ – major Western regimes, corporations, international financial institutions, colonial and neocolonial powers - have not played any role in the predicaments of those countries. Furthermore, the arrogant ignores that the historical processes of Western Europe,  industrialisa...