A New World (Dis)order
Food for Thought
By Dr R Neerunjun Gopee
If we take a cursory look at the way that the world has evolved in modern times, especially since the age of industrialization set in a couple of centuries ago, we will no doubt have to acknowledge that science and technology have brought about drastic changes in our lives through improvements in the material conditions of living. Gadgets that have allowed us to spend less time on routine household chores like cooking, cleaning, and washing have given us more leisure time – for which advancing technology and man’s creativity have also made available all kinds of gimmicks designed to enhance pleasure, to tickle and titillate as well.
Hundreds protest against ‘BBC pro-Israel bias’ of Gaza coverage in cities across the UK. Pic – The Independent
So far so ‘good’. In parallel, though, there has been competition among countries to access resources from wherever they are available so as to meet the increasing demands and stimulate appetites of rising numbers of people the world over. Even if this competition has not always been healthy, nevertheless overall practically all countries have gradually organized themselves politically, economically, and socially to benefit from all the advances that have kept taking place.
The political/economic arrangements that evolved and were eventually adopted by different countries were capitalism, socialism, Marxism/communism, autocracies and dictatorships, and some constitutional monarchies. Post-World War II the developed world found itself divided into two blocs led by two superpowers, the United States of America, and the United Soviet Socialist Republic, pitting the capitalist mode of governance against the communist model. The former was deemed to be the epitome of democracy in contrast to the latter which was believed to be less democratic. Most remaining countries opted to follow the socialist/capitalist model of democracy. In the 1990s this led noted historian Francis Fukuyama to advocate that liberal democracy was the ideal model for a country’s development and thus represented ‘The End of History’ – the title of the book he wrote on the subject.
Emerging faultlines
But then social and religious faultlines began to crack open the facades and fabrics of the most lauded western democracies, as their capacities to manage these potentially divisive tendencies through fundamentally two models – the ‘melting pot’ one of the US and the ‘multicultural’ one with the UK in the forefront – fell short of their expectations. This has impacted their politics as well, with liberal democracy in Europe and the US taking a hard knock, especially in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008/09, if one is to go by the profusion of articles about the ‘crisis of democracy’ that have been published since, and that peaked during the elections that brought Donald Trump to power. The flow of such articles has not ceased.
Embroilment in wars and conflicts in Africa, the Middle east and Asia has further complicated matters, with migrants massively flooding into Europe in particular, causing further social dislocations, with increasingly frequent rioting and attacks against the native citizenry. These have been accompanied by open threats to radically alter the demographics of several European countries and eventually take over and rule them according to archaic models. The latest stressor is the Ukrainian war which is now in its second year and unending.
Despite its being the least bad of political systems, according to British politician Winston Churchill, democracy with its weaknesses is nevertheless the deemed best way to run a country. Our own model of democracy is the Westminsterian one inherited from the UK, looked up to as a robust representation of that system. One would have thought, therefore, that people in responsible positions and established organizations in the UK would hail both the greatest and the largest democracies in the world by their own standards, namely the US and India respectively.
The British ‘Bullshitting’ Corporation
Quite often, this is not the case when it comes to India. An example of this is a BBC documentary on PM Modi putting blame on him in the riots that took place in Gujarat in 2002 when he was Chief Minister. It is a matter that has been laid to rest by no less than both High Courts and the Supreme Court of India, exonerating him and uncovering the evil design of the plotters who brought the case to the Supreme Court, among others the tainted activist Teesta Setalvad.
As was to be expected, there has been a robust response from the External Affairs Ministry of India, which has called the BBC documentary a piece of propaganda, a discredited narrative which reeks of colonialism and bigotry intended to cause tension not only in India but also globally between the Hindus and the Muslims. Besides letters addressed to the BBC by UK parliamentarians, nearly 200 former Indian ambassadors, judges and army officers have penned a strongly worded letter to the BBC, which they averred is having delusions of imperialism. This is clearly an attempt to stop the inexorable onward march of Modi towards a widely predicted victory in the general elections due next year. Both the rise of India and that of Modi – and his close personal ties with leaders such as Emmanuel Macron, Barack Obama, John Biden, Putin — are stirring discomfort in certain quarters, and much that has been happening earlier with respect to the rise of China is now being thrust at India.
The poison from Harvard University
Against the oft-repeated position of India, ably articulated by its suave External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on various global platforms, that it advocates and practises multi-alignment rather than play the superpower game of hegemonic dominance – cooperation instead of killer competition –, there is a cabal of anti-India forces that have been at work for many years. In his seminal book published in 2011, ‘Breaking India’, author Rajiv Malhotra (a former computer and AI expert and corporate giant based in Princeton, New Jersey, US, for over 40 years) has provided the detailed documentary evidence regarding these organizations and the people (‘the ecosystem’) who are with them, and that includes befooled Indians who are lavishly bought into playing the victimhood card and groomed to be anti-patriotic.
All educated people would have heard about, and many would have read, the well-known book ‘Clash of Civilisations’ by Samuel Huntington. This is almost happening, but to it is now added a new dimension, that of pushing destructive agendas by taking control of the discourse about persons, organizations or countries. Currently Modi and India are the chosen targets of this global workhorse which has its origins at Harvard University. In what he calls Breaking India 2.0, his latest book ‘Snakes in the Ganga’, Rajiv Malhotra in the Introduction gives a comprehensive account of the kind of ‘Atrocity literature’ against India that is being churned out at Harvard.
Wokeism: World disorder
He goes on to explain ‘The Americanisation of Marxism’ and the conflation of the Critical Race Theory with the caste system, which has been shown to be a Portuguese construct and not of Indian origin as is widely believed. In 23 chapters he spells out with his co-author Vijaya Viswanathan (mechanical engineer and corporate cadre turned educator) the conspiracies inspired by ‘wokeism’ that are being hatched against India – and about which a majority of Indians including its leaders are blissfully oblivious. It is the ‘unknown unknown’ poison that is being covertly and at times even overtly spread to undermine India’s advancing development and global influence through its presidency of the G20.
This is how the authors define the core thesis of Wokeism: All structures must be dismantled that are in any way linked to the oppression of any groups of people and that were erected by the oppressors.
BBC is trying the Wokeism trick on India and Modi, the idea being no less than the dismantling of the country. But Wokeism has spread beyond the US borders, and its adverse impacts so widespread that the latest issue of the French magazine Valeurs Actuelles has devoted a whole section to analyze the phenomenon. Its editorialist has coined the term ‘gréviculture’ to describe the widespread anarchic and violent protests that have been rocking France.
For me, the BBC had lost its credibility since long. At one time, it was a respected body. Many of us who were students at the Royal College Curepipe in the 1960s when Bullen was the Rector would recall that, upon his recommendation, we listened to the 8 o’clock BBC news every morning to learn the proper pronunciation of English and to get reliable information for our GP essays.
But BBC, at least some sections of it, is now infested with Wokes who regularly spew venom against India. They had better keep in mind Newton’s Law that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Karma, they say, is a bitch. And when the backlash comes, as it inevitably will, it will not be the BBC that calls the shots. Instead of finger-pointing India, it had better deal with the snakes in its own and its supporters’ backyards which are destabilising the world order.
Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 27 January 2023
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