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By Ramzy Baroud & Romana Rubeo
With out downplaying the inner contradictions among the many essential international locations that established the BRICS group or the newcomers, one can’t assist however ponder a world with out US-Western domination.
On the zenith of the mass protests in Egypt on January 25, 2011, Twitter, Fb and different Western-based social media platforms seemed to be essentially the most important instruments for the Egyptian Revolution.
Although some observers later contested the usage of the phrases ‘Twitter Revolution’ or ‘Social Media Revolution’, one can’t deny the centrality of those platforms within the dialogue across the occasions which tried to redefine the facility constructions of Egypt.
It was hardly a shock that, on January 26, the Egyptian regime determined to dam entry to social media in a determined try to stop the unfold of the protests.
Twitter, Google and different platforms shortly responded by “set up(ing) a system that permits customers to proceed posting 140-character tweets regardless of the Web shutdown in Egypt”, France24 reported.
It appeared that US-based know-how firms had been eager on the elimination of Hosni Mubarak and his regime. Certainly, their motion was fairly elaborate and well-coordinated:
“The answer proposed by the 2 Web giants is known as ‘speak-to-tweet’ and permits individuals to publish updates on the well-known microblogging website by leaving a message on a voice mailbox. The service is freed from cost, with Google providing customers three worldwide phone numbers,” France24 wrote, offering the precise numbers within the US, Italy and Bahrain.
Apparent Dichotomy
The irony is inescapable. How might these supposedly ‘revolutionary social media platforms’ be a part of the identical Western construction that’s devoted to attacking and censoring Washington’s enemies, whereas elevating the US’ often-corrupt allies?
Whereas some select to miss the apparent dichotomy, one can’t be so gullible.
This topic turns into but extra intriguing once we contemplate the battle on Palestinian and pro-Palestine views on these very social media platforms.
Whereas Palestinian and pro-Palestinian activists are often banned, blocked and censored for rejecting Israel’s navy occupation and apartheid in Palestine, Israeli propaganda is allowed to flourish on social media, with little hindrance.
This isn’t only a social media phenomenon.
The very fact is, social media firms’ angle in direction of the upheaval within the Arab world was in line with the overall zeitgeist of the US; actually, Western societies – governments, mainstream media, and even public opinion polls.
Whereas some – actually, many – individuals could have genuinely needed to help a preferred push for democracy within the Center East, governments and their media allies knew that showing as if on the ‘proper aspect of historical past’ would grant them the geopolitical areas to affect the agendas and, in the end, outcomes of those revolts. Libya paid the heaviest value of that self-serving Western campaign.
However when the revolts largely did not create the most important paradigm shift that Arab lots had coveted, Western governments had been the primary to reincorporate the post-revolts Arab regimes again into the embrace of the so-called worldwide group.
West’s Actual Objectives
For Washington and its Western allies, the whole train had little to do with democracy, human rights and illustration, and every little thing to do with new alternatives, geopolitics and regional relevance.
By supporting the revolts, the West needed to make sure the ensuing political discourse within the Center East was merely not anti-Western. And, sadly, they partly succeeded, at the least in making a separation between corrupt regimes and the colonial powers that had sustained their corruption.
Although some labored to articulate a discourse that related those that carried out the oppression – for instance, Mubarak – and people who made the oppression attainable within the first place – his Western allies – these makes an attempt obtained little traction when in comparison with the mainstream Western-driven discourse.
Certainly, the anti-colonial discourse was not allowed to taint what the West needed to color as a purely ‘pro-democracy’ rhetoric, one which has no political or historic context that goes past the simplified model of the ‘Arab Spring’.
That is exactly why the New York Occasions, Twitter and the White Home – and quite a few different Western events – in the end parroted the identical political line and accentuated the identical language – whereas suppressing all different attainable interpretations.
Since then, the political discourse within the Center East has been rife with contradictions. For instance, a few of those that rejected the US battle and genocide in Iraq in 2003 later joined the refrain of interventionists in Syria within the post-2011 rebellion become civil battle.
Not a day passes with out the US and different Western governments being referred to as on by an Arab human rights group or civil rights group to place stress on this or that regime, to launch political prisoners, to withhold funds and so forth.
Bizarrely, Washington had turn into the guarantor of battle and peace, chaos and stability within the Center East. The unrepentant violator of our human rights has turn into, at the least for a few of us, our human rights champion.
However that is greater than a easy case of unlucky contradictions. It was performed by design.
Sadly, Arab revolts had been largely suppressed; the outdated regimes reinvented themselves and are again in enterprise, once more, with the direct help of, and funding by Western governments.
Our Personal Contradictions
However is a special path attainable, or are we merely trapped eternally on this conundrum?
We mirrored on all of this throughout the BRICS convention in Johannesburg, South Africa on August 22-24.
With out downplaying the inner contradictions among the many essential international locations that established the BRICS group – Brazil, Russia, India, China and, later, South Africa – or the newcomers – Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Argentina, the UAE and Ethiopia – one can’t assist however ponder a world with out US-Western domination.
For the primary time because the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dismantling of the Warsaw Pact, there appears to be an actual international political momentum of precise price that doesn’t emanate from the West and its regional lackeys and representatives.
With no viable different for change, for many years, we now have been trapped in these seemingly inescapable contradictions: criticizing Western colonialism, neocolonialism and imperialism, whereas interesting to the ethical values of the West; we proceed to name for the respect of worldwide regulation, although we’re totally conscious of how ‘worldwide legal guidelines’ had been designed, are interpreted and applied.
In brief, we wish the West to depart us alone, whereas beseeching the West to return to our rescue; we endure the implications of Western wars and flee to the West as determined refugees.
We’ve skilled this dichotomy quite a few occasions previously – in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and each a part of the Center East – actually, the International South.
In fact, the contradiction is hardly Western; it’s completely ours. The ‘West’ not often tried to current itself as something however a political mass that’s motivated by sheer financial, geopolitical and strategic pursuits.
The West’s use of human rights, democracy and so forth, is however a continuation of an outdated colonial legacy that extends a whole lot of years. The audience for such double-speak has by no means actually been the colonized, however the colonial entities themselves.
To assert that the West has modified, is altering or is able to change has no historic foundation and no proof.
The Case of Palestine
The case of Palestine stays essentially the most highly effective instance of Western hypocrisy and our personal gullibility. With out the West, Israel would have by no means been established; and with out Western help and safety, Israel would have by no means continued to exist as a navy energy and an apartheid regime.
Over 100 years after the British handed over Palestine to the Zionists, 75 years of Israeli conquest and violence and over fifty years of Israeli navy occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Financial institution and Gaza, the West stays Israel’s biggest supporter and benefactor.
These very latest headlines ought to illustrate our level:
- A Dutch court docket grants immunity to Israeli leaders from battle crimes expenses
- UK slammed for opposing ICJ (Worldwide Court docket of Justice) ruling on Israel Occupation of Palestine
- Biden dispatches high adviser for talks with Saudi crown prince on normalizing relations with Israel
That is all happening when Israel has turn into a full-blown apartheid regime, and when Israeli battle crimes within the West Financial institution are at their worst, at the least since 2005.
And there are not any indicators of issues enhancing for the Palestinians in any approach, as Israel is now dominated by authorities coalitions whose ministers outright deny the very existence of Palestinians, and are repeatedly calling for genocide and spiritual battle.
Sure, the West continues to be financing, defending, and defending that very racist, apartheid entity in opposition to the mere risk of authorized accountability.
And mainstream Western media and most social media platforms proceed to censor Palestinian voices, as if the Palestinian quest for justice is unworthy and, actually, offensive to Western sensibilities.
Method Ahead
Within the ultimate evaluation, neither BRICS alone, nor another financial or political physique will save us from our personal contradictions.
The brand new political formations within the International South, nevertheless, ought to function a place to begin for confronting our dichotomy, at the least by way of the conclusion that an entire world, rife with potential, attainable allies and new concepts, extends past the confines of Washington and Brussels.
Within the International South, we should discover these new margins and prospects, and transfer ahead towards actual, substantive and sustainable change. Imploring the West to assist us can’t be our technique, as a result of historical past has taught us, again and again, that our torturers can’t even be our saviors.
– Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, writer and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He’s the writer of six books. His newest guide, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is ‘Our Imaginative and prescient for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Converse Out’. His different books embody ‘My Father was a Freedom Fighter’ and ‘The Final Earth’. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Analysis Fellow on the Heart for Islam and International Affairs (CIGA). His web site is www.ramzybaroud.internet
– Romana Rubeo is an Italian author and the managing editor of The Palestine Chronicle. Her articles appeared in lots of on-line newspapers and educational journals. She holds a Grasp’s Diploma in International Languages and Literature and focuses on audio-visual and journalism translation.
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