Video Infioblog with Transcriot: Why Netanyahu Is Still Free - Vijay Prashad | In The Studio
"The Israelis see Palestinians as lesser humans. That's the old colonial trick. You can be brutalised and barbarised... your people simply don't matter." • Did US interfere in ICC investigations on Israel? • Netanyahu shouldn't be compared to Hamas. • Why global protest towards Israel is an anti-colonial resistance. Vijay Prashad, a prominent historian and director of the Tricontinental: Institute For Social Research discusses the Palestinian struggle and more on Beyond The Ballot Box.
Transcript
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20,000 children have been removed from the war zone but not on a train they
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were removed in coffins or buried alive and that has not yet provoked Mr KC from
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framing a warrant against Benjamin Neto it's a
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disgrace hello and welcome to beyond the ballet box I'm dashan Yan we are all
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part of a global capitalist system dominated by us hegemony and imperialist
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force this is especially true since the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall in fact it was such a
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Monumental moment that American political scientist Francis fukuyama wrote a book called The End Of History
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clearly he was wrong decades later fukuyama himself admitted so today
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China's rise among many other factors has challenged the global dominance of American imperialism and neoliberalism
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but some experts say an empire in Decline is that it's most dangerous so
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how do we make sense of this changing Global political economy my guest on
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today's show is none other than vij prashad vij is an Indian historian journalist political commentator and
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prominent intellectual he's currently based in New York he's written numerous books including some of my favorites red
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star over the third world on Cuba and the withdrawal the letter to to he wrote
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with Nome Chomsky and he's also the director of tricontinental Institute for
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social research which recently published a paper titled hyper imperialism a
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dangerous decadent new stage Vijay welcome to the show it's an absolute
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honor to have you on and to speak to you thank you so much for coming on the show it's great to be with you thanks a lot
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yeah so before we talk about hyper imperialism first tell us what exactly
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is imperialism yeah you know it's something that people in Malaysia would be familiar with um people in India
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certainly familiar with it it's a simple concept actually which has become um
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almost taboo to talk about uh the concept is where you uh basically
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undermine the sovereignty of a people so you know there's a form of imperialism
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where you come in and you take over the territory of a people take over their political sovereignty that's called
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colonialism you know where you come in you take over the the land um you you
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you run things for the people there you don't allow them any kind of political
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say in how their world is structured and so on um but colonialism doesn't exhaust
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imperialism because you can win independence politically you can put your flag up what France Fanon called
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flag Independence but you can still have your your sovereignty constrainted you
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can still not be able to make a lot of decisions by yourself you know political
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decisions about the economy political decisions about Society culture and so
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on and that you know lack of sovereignty over economic decision making cultural
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decision making and so on is you know broadly put imperialism where the
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decisions are made elsewhere sometimes the decisions aren't even made they are
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baked into the cake of the structure so it's very hard to break out of things
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you know for instance if you are an exporter of raw materials and an importer of finished goods um it's very
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hard to break out of the in a sense the bind that's been placed upon you during
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the time of colonialism so even if you are formally independent you're sort of running in circles trying to produce
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more raw materials so that you can import necessities of the modern world including energy you know oil or natural
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gas or whatever very expensive compared to you know things like rubber that you
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might export or sugar or whatever you know these things much cheapened uh
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commodity prices for these these things so that that constraint of sovereignty
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effectively is imperialism and it's been around in the modern world from the beginning one might even say modernity
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uh was born alongside you know imperialism so is what you're saying
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what you're describing right now I'm also interchangeable with terms like neocolonialism because this idea that
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yes in many countries including Malaysia if you walk outside we don't see British soldiers or let's say American soldiers
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waling up and down our streets anymore but but there is still enormous wealth
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extraction um from the global South to the global North and these we will describe discuss in just a second but is
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what you just described a minute ago similar to this concept of neocolonialism so the term
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neocolonialism was really best described by the first head of government of Ghana
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who led the fight uh against British imperialism in in what was then the Gold
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Coast and that's quame in Kuma in Kuma in 1965 published a book called
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neocolonialism now what in Kuma was doing in that book and by the way that book was reviewed by the Central
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Intelligence Agency by the United States government and the book was published in 1965 reviewed by the CIA the following
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year um there was a c data against Mr enuma and many people in the CIA uh said
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in in the records that effectively he was coed because of a book he wrote the book was very important he offered a
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very strong criticism of the world order now quame and Kuma used the term
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neocolonialism as a way um to to basically make a moral argument that
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colonialism might have ended but a new form of colonialism has arrived and that
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you know the African continent was being recolonized by different means within
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the book itself he he writes a lot about imperialism you know the tentacles of
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multinational corporations the fact that a country like Ghana was stuck exporting
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cocoa importing finished products from around the world uh you know about 15
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years after Mr enuma published this book Walter Rodney who is from Guyana and was
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teaching at the University of Dar Salam in Tanzania published another superb book called How Europe underdeveloped
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Africa um and in that book Rodney also describes how after colonialism comes
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this period um of let's call it neocolonialism where the neocolonial
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structure you know AKA imperialism impinges the ability of new States um to
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have sovereignty over their decision making so yeah I mean in a sense it's a synonym but it's also trying to do
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something moral which is at the time of decolonization to bring the word
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colonial back into play and say actually we are not postcolonial Nations we are
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nations that are struggling with a structure of neocolonialism you know
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without going into the whole thing of imperialism which is a very charged word
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and came and and in a way became a slogan of the left um these you know
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thinkers politicians after all Walter Rodney who wrote how Europe under developed Africa goes on to found the
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workers um and people's party in in Diana and is assassinated in 1980 uh
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Walter Rodney also as a politician was well aware that you know you don't want to walk around just throwing the slogan
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imperialism out there might be emptied of content so let's let's be precise
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let's be you know filled with empirical content let's be you know a little
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unique in using this term neocolonialism with all the weight of the word colonialism within it so like you said
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um imperialism it in and of itself is already a very charged word so how do
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you contextualize the period we are in right now which you call hyper imperialism could you define and
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contextualize um hyper imperialism its key characteristics and its implications
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for Global political economy well to do that dasan I'm going to have to
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periodize the last 100 years because otherwise you don't understand why this is something different um the term
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imperialism was used actually very positively U you know over the the ca of
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European history in other words when the British imperialists saw themselves they
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saw themselves wearing the clothes of the Roman imperialists you know that's where the term comes from it's a Roman
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Empire uh Pax Romana you know the great Roman peace the British would talk about
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Pax britanica and so on they really fashion themselves after the Romans they
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didn't see anything negative in the term imperialism but British liberals began
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to be critical of of of imperialism in fact a liberal writer John Hobson wrote
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a very moving book filled with data about how imperialism was impoverishing
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parts of the world a generation before Hobson an Indian who lived in Britain d
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by naroi and actually was a member of parliament in in the UK datai naroi
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wrote a book about un-british rule in India you know you get un-british rule like this is not Cricket you're not
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following the rules um you know in un-british rule naroi talked about the drain of wealth how Britain was draining
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wealth from India so a Critic critical voice opens up within uh the British
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Empire at the intellectual level about imperialism Lenin the um Russian Marxist
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discovers Hobson's book reads it very carefully and then tries to understand
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why is it that the European countries have gone into this fratricidal war in
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1914 you know the the so-called Great War why and what Lenin argues looking at
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the materials in Hobson and other liberal writers is that you see what
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capitalism does is it develops within a country largely and firms become have a
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tendency to become monopolies within countries then they ask their governments to help them get an
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advantage in other countries and what then occurs is inter capitalist crisis
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Lenin argued become inter imperialist Wars so that the Great War of
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1914 he argued in his text imperialism is a war between different Imperial
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powers that were trying to get benefits for their domestic capitalist concerns
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so that was the period of Lenin now um right after Lenin finished this pamphlet
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which was supposed to answer the question why do these have these countries gone to war he wasn't writing
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a general theory of imperialism it's a very specific task he set himself
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unfortunately that text has been seen as a general theory of imperialism across
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time it's a very wrong reading of that text anyway right right after Lenin
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wrote that text published the text comes the Russian Revolution and Lenin goes
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back to um Russia he's able to enter Russia and leads the um the October
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Revolution there was a buar revolution in February and then he leads the October Revolution now the world changes
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with the establishment of the Soviet Republic and after that um the USSR
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because then a large part of the world enters what we might what they call the Socialist block well from roughly
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1917 um until roughly 1989 when the Soviet Union collapses you see a
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tendency for the inter imperialist conflict between the major you know
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capitalist Powers dampened the existence of the Soviet Union brings them all
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together in an anti-communist block right and they try their best to mediate their differences this is actually best
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explained uh when we look at two different um groupings NATO created in
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1949 brings together all the major capitalist powers under one military
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command unifies their military uh together you know that basically dampens
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their tendency to fight with each other France and Germany don't fight with each other after
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1945 um you know I I have a view that the war that breaks out in 1914 ends in
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1945 with a short halftime in between so after 1945 the capitalist Powers really
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don't fight each other they they unite in 1989 so in that period from 1914 to
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19 1917 to 1989 the principal distinctions in the world are between
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the Socialist block the third world block and the um capitalist block that's
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basically the the geography and Inter imperialist conflict is weakened
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considerably in this period um then in the third period you begin to see um you
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know you begin to see the collapse of the Soviet Union from the 1980s onward
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and you begin to see a new era where the United States tries to exercise uh its
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domination over the whole world and that some people have called that the unipolar ER era that's when the US
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attempts unsuccessfully I must say um to have dominion over the world unsuccessfully because right through
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this period they kept finding enemies they called them Rogue States you know whether Iran or you know it's South
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Korea North Korea and so on Rogue States wouldn't submit so they didn't have
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total Dominion of the world and then the contradictions of of globalization and
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so on had the impact so then we enter the fourth stage which is hyper imperialism now in 2006 2007 that's when
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the third stage ends from roughly 1989 90 to 20067 so very short period uh of
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of of this sort of you know attempt at unipolarity when that begins to end it
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ends really with a real serious economic crisis the crisis of 20067 the entry of
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the third grade depression this stuns the Chinese you know into a kind of of
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of Rapid change of plan rather than being this satanic Embrace with the
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United States they start to build the belt and Road system and so on it's in
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this fourth phase that the United States and its allies This Global North block
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recognizes that they cannot contest the Chinese in an inter capitalist conflict
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they can't you know outspend the Chinese in Africa or in Latin America or in
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Southeast Asia they can't actually build the kind of modern infrastructure that
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the Chinese are building even in their own territories and therefore the only
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weapon they have to try to maintain the hegemony is military force so we use the
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term hyper imperialism to talk about this kinetic character of the current
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conflict where the United States sees enemies everywhere and wants to use use its immense military to destroy uh
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anybody and anything that it sees as a threat and these are phrases that are
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almost there directly in the US documents near peer Rivals weakening
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Russia not permitting China to rise and so on um you know this is the hyper
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imperialist intention which they have broadcast quite directly we use this
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terms a lot Global North and Global South um when discussing political economy um people on the left especially
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use the term to talk about wealth extraction but what exactly are we talking about here when we say Global
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North and Global South well it's very important to be as precise as possible you know when um the countries of the
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global South whatever that means we'll get to it started to tell the West that
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we don't agree with your interpretation of what's happening in Ukraine um there was a great deal of puzzlement in the
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capitals um of the advanced countries you know in Japan for instance the
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Japanese foreign minister spokesperson was directly asked in a press conference
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what is the global South and she couldn't answer the question she said I think it's a synonym for developing
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countries and you know if if they don't know what these terms are um you can't expect people you know somebody walking
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on the street to be asked with a camera you know with a microphone what's the global sou mean it's ridiculous so we
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spent a lot of time looking at this and we basically made a list of all the 193
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countries that are there in the United Nations one way of the other we looked at a number of different um you know
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data points um worked with global South insights to uh develop an enormous uh
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you know data set on this so let me just quickly define global North because
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that's easier right now the Global North is actually a block um it is united in a
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military Alliance uh which is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization there are
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actual countries that have signed up to come to War uh to join a member state if
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it is ever attacked or if it needs assistance that's a military Alliance you know Russia and China for instance
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don't have a military Alliance they have a strategic Alliance that means if Russia is at War China is in under no
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obligation to go to war on behalf of Russia but um Germany and the United States have a military Alliance if
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Germany goes to war the United States is treaty obliged to enter that war so that's a military Alliance number one
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number two and that was formed by the way in 1949 it's dominated by the United
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States which plays a major role in NATO um number two there is in since 1974
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there is been a political Alliance a political block which is seven countries
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Canada the United States Italy France um Germany Japan United Kingdom that's the
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G7 countries um that's merely seven except that there are partner states
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with the G7 um some of these partner states are within what is the oecd the
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organization of economic cooperation and development um a global northr run quote
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unquote think tank it's actually a place to formulate common policy so there's a
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political wing of the a global North and it's centered around the G7 countries
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once again United States plays a big role there now it's not to say that they don't disagree on this or that policy
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for instance most of the other G7 countries vote against the United States
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when it comes to the Embargo and Cuba there are lot disagreements on several things but when push comes sh on an
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important issue Ukraine for instance they all line up there's no disagreement
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again mcon can go on a limb and so on but he's pulled back very quickly so
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there's a political Alliance but most importantly and something people don't talk of enough there's an intelligence
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sharing agreement started off as the five eyes that was the five settler
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Colonial countries Canada the UK Australia New Zealand uh and the United
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States but now it's the 40 I includes many other countries they share
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intelligence you know that's that makes them into a block So This Global n
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shares intelligence has common political leadership and has a military Alliance
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it's a pretty solid indicator of a block and we call the that block the global
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North United States is primac inter Paris first among equals as it were is a
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leading power in this in this block and you know in that text hyper imperialism
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we go into the military spending aspect of it and what we find is that the global North spends around
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75% of the world's military budget annual military budget 75% by the global
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North it's a real thing now the global South is much less precise there is no
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um political body in the global South uh there is the n the non- allign move M
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set up in 1961 but it really doesn't formulate a common policy for the global
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South it's a place where they meet and have certain discussions about solidarity and so on it's not common
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policy setting there is no military Alliance of the global South none exists
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in fact very few Global South countries sign military agreements with other
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countries you know very few just a handful of states and mostly they sign military agreements with the United
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States because they have bases you know one or two or three of the 902 US
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military bases and certainly there's no intelligence sharing amongst the global South it's not a block it's several
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different groupings you know there are some socialist countries um that have a
22:47
close alignment particularly in Latin America you know Venezuela Cuba Nicaragua and so on Bolivia they within
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the Alba TCP uh trade and political agreement um you know that the Chinese
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have built the Shanghai cooperation organization but even that is really quite a loose grouping of different
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countries India and Pakistan both belong to the Shanghai cooperation agreement and they have their own problems with
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each other you can't say they belong to any kind of grouping so the global South is a way on the one hand the remainder
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those who are not in the global North but it's also countries that have been impacted by colonialism they have that
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heritage you know inclusive of Malaysia I mean you know it's very interest it was very very interesting to see the
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Malaysian prime minister standing next to um Olaf Schulz of of Germany and
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schooling Mr Schulz about how to understand Gaza you know because he was
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speaking from the perspective of colonialism understanding what it means to have been colonized and brutalized I
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mean if any child in Malaysia doesn't know about the Malaya emergency um the
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last period of colonial rule they must go and read up on it the British were brutal in that last phase brutal um you
24:07
know they treated people uh this is after World War II they treated people with a great deal of violence you know
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it wasn't just putting the Insurgency down they brutalized people and all of
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that is important for us to know and and I must say um you know Anar Ibrahim was
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aware I think of that history in order to spoken in that particular way uh D and that I
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think helps Define the global South it's not just the developing countries it's
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these countries which have an enduring memory of what it meant to be humiliated
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as people during the era of high colonialism you know you brought up Olaf Schultz and and that brings me to my
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next question right because it seems like this divide between the dominating
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Global North led by the US and the rest Loosely we can call it the global South um we can see this this
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divide and and the domination and the power imbalance um and the solidarity
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perhaps among the global South in the Palestine issue like you brought up um anai Ibrahim um you know the Malaysian
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prime minister Dr ano Ibrahim is one example what he um spoke in the to the German press um I'm wondering VJ how
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does the situation in Palestine exemplify the broader struggles of the
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global South against imperialism against colonialism what is this memory of
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colonialism that I was talking about what is that you know it's important to understand that residue there's a phrase
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that I use a lot the international division of humanity um you know there's
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a belief for instance that when a factory the Rana Plaza Factory in just
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outside Daka in Bangladesh when it collapses hundreds of workers are killed
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um you don't really see individual stories of these workers in the Press of
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the West you know when there's a when a when a when a big tidal wave strikes
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Malaysia and Thailand um the stories that the Western media cover are you
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know the tourists who are there they don't cover the story about the Thai person or the Malay that gets swept into
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the Indian Ocean you know that's not interesting I'm thinking about the Tsunami of 2004 um the stories picked up
26:33
were you know this Australian family was killed it's a tragedy that they were killed but what about the person making
26:40
their beds you know what about in the Next Room there was let's say an Indian family also tourists you know vanish
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into the the waters um what about the security guard who tried to save everybody and was dragged into the water
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there's an international division of humanity you know when the conflict breaks out in Ukraine Western press is
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out there crying about blue-eyed and blond head children being you know brutalized but when Palestinians are
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dying for almost 40,000 you know 20,000 of them children um the care and concern
27:18
for their humanity is minimized and that's the international division of
27:23
humanity um that you know somebody like the prime minister of of Namibia Sara
27:29
can visualize or Nadi pandor the foreign minister of South Africa or Anar ibraim
27:36
of Malaysia you know they can see that they know what it feels like to be
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treated um on the other side of the international division of humanity you know they know what it feels like um in
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South Africa it was just yesterday that apide 40 years ago that apide was in
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existence you know um the foreign minister of South Africa NAD pandor is
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was alive during the time when she was a second class citizen lived on officially
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on the other side of the international division of humanity the prime minister of Namibia was alive when she lived on
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the opposite side of the international division of humanity um these are residues of that earlier history so when
28:22
people see the way in which they are brutalizing Palestine you know look people say why are all these students in
28:29
the United States and other countries so upset it must be because they are watching videos on Tik Tok it's not true
28:36
it's not true they may be watching the videos on Tik Tok but where are the videos from Ukraine which show children
28:44
being brutalized like this it's a plain fact that the Russians are not bombing
28:49
the ukrainians in the same way as the Israelis are bombing the Palestinians and that's partly because the Russians
28:57
don't see see the ukrainians as a lesser species you know they see them they are
29:02
also part of the Slavic peoples and this that and the other you know they don't see them as lesser than human but the
29:10
Israelis see the Palestinians as lesser than human that's the old Colonial trick
29:16
isn't it that's the old Colonial thing that you are on the other side of the
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international division of humanity you can be brutalized you can be barbarized your people don't matter simply don't
29:28
matter that's what really captivates our feeling I mean I got to link to that
29:34
also the fact that there is a religious aspect to this you know um that the
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majority of Palestinian Muslim and a lot of countries with Muslim majority
29:45
populations you know feel uh some kinship you know the umah comes into
29:50
play and especially during Raman or the month of Ramadan this was heightened you
29:57
know this feeling of of of the umah being damaged in this way I don't want to neglect the question of um you know
30:04
this playing a role especially for Muslims but I also want to emphasize
30:09
that this colonial residue the international division of humanity makes this an anti-colonial fight much more
30:17
than a pro-muslim uh argument and that it is absolutely an anti Colonial um
30:23
struggle that we are witnessing at least that's how I look at it as well but you know speaking about this um division of
30:30
humanity right um what is your take because recently the international criminal court um they issued arrest
30:37
warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu um the head of state of Israel as well as um
30:43
leaders from Hamas now the state US state department spokesperson says the
30:49
US fundamentally rejects um this announcement and I think even uh
30:54
President Joe Biden came out and said that you know we cannot equate and we you know Hamas with you know Benjamin
31:02
Netanyahu even if we disagree with certain things that Benjamin Netanyahu said we cannot equate these two forces
31:08
um I think people on the global South will say um yes we shouldn't be equating I mean we accept the international
31:15
criminal court um um you know arrest warrants um go after everyone perceived as war criminals but if you're talking
31:21
about not equating people on the global South would say yes we shouldn't equate because one is a genocidal oppressor
31:28
carrying out appetite and one more is a the other side Hamas however you want to look at it they are resistance Fighters
31:35
they are resistance force challenging um the the oppressor um how do you see it
31:40
and and your take on what um the US um whether it's a spokesperson Joe Biden has said in response to the icc's arrest
31:48
warrants well you know the international criminal court is again a treaty body of
31:53
the United Nations it was created by the Rome statute and so on the treaty is pretty interesting and is worth reading
32:00
1996 treaty that establishes the court the court has a very poor reputation of
32:07
going after global North politicians after all um you know Kofi Anan in 2004
32:14
on BBC banan then was the Secretary General of the UN 2004 goes on BBC and
32:21
calls the US Ward on Iraq illegal um if the US W on Iraq is illegal if it is a
32:28
war of aggression which is exactly the implication if it is um not a war that
32:33
is defensive then it has violated the UN Charter it's an aggressive War if it's
32:39
an aggressive war that kills over a million Iraqis uh at what point uh does
32:46
the um the ICC frame warrants against George W bush Donald ramsfeld Dick
32:53
Cheney Tony Blair and so on there was no question of a warrant so for a long time
32:59
people have felt that the ICC is quite biased um on behalf of the global North
33:06
and against the global south I mean the people they had indicted for years were all Africans U you know it was one thing
33:13
and then suddenly they came in and indicted a few yugoslavians but that was it I mean there was no indictment for
33:20
any Global North politici for the Hideous and illegal Wars that they have conducted in this recent period um
33:28
it was interesting because the ICC has had on its docket the question of Israel
33:33
for many years um during the um the Trump Administration lead at the time
33:39
lead prosecutor mati Ben suda opened a file on the question of Afghanistan you
33:46
know all to investigate all war crimes and she opened a file on Israel this is the war of 2014 where Israel within a
33:55
few days really killed thousands of of of Palestinians and she opened these
34:00
files for investigation at the time the US government said to her directly in
34:05
public um this was John Bolton who was a high official of the Trump Administration said that a um miss Ben
34:14
suda will not get a visa to come to the United Nations now this is a violation of the agreement between the US
34:20
government and the UN the UN is based in New York officials of the United Nations have free access to come to the un
34:28
office you know to say we won't allow you to enter the United States really is a violation of that agreement and then
34:35
John Bolton Said and we're not ever going to permit your family members to enter the US no Disneyland for the Ben
34:42
suda children and so on I mean it's a ridiculous Mafia move by the the US
34:48
government that was fatti Bena well the current lead prosecutor Karim Khan
34:54
King's Council um is a is a is a British national who you know has a very
35:01
checkered history his brother is a crooked politician uh but that's not Karim Khan now when the Russians invaded
35:09
Ukraine very quickly Mr Karim Khan framed warrants against Vladimir Putin
35:16
and his associate on the grounds that the Russians were removing children from
35:22
the war zone into Russia indeed that could be considered a war crime under
35:28
the terms of population transfer and that was the the way they did it but
35:34
remember now I mean just pause for a minute they received ICC warrants within
35:39
days for moving children from the war zone now right now when Mr Karim Khan
35:47
casc has made this press conference where he said we are considering remember they haven't framed
35:53
warrants we are considering warrants against Benjamin nedo and Hamas leaders
35:59
this is 7 months into this brutal genocidal War the international Court of
36:07
justices plausible genocide in which 20,000 children haven't been well I
36:15
suppose they have been removed from the war zone but not on a train they were removed in coffins or buried alive and
36:23
that has not yet provoked Mr KC from framing a warrant against Benjamin Neto
36:30
it's a disgrace I mean what he has done in this press conference might be fine but it's a disgrace and he should be
36:36
removed from his position for rendering open bias um in in in the cases of the
36:43
war in Ukraine and the war in Gaza open bias he should be forth withth removed
36:48
by the UN Security Council but of course he will not be removed now to say this's
36:54
equivalence between Mr nety and Hamas leadership is ridiculous Hamas is an
37:00
organization of the Palestinian resistance the Palestinians are a people who are uh treated by UN treaty as an
37:09
occupied people un calls Gaza East Jerusalem and the West Bank the occupied
37:15
Palestinian territory it's a singular place the opt occupied it's an occupied
37:23
territory the occupying power is Israel several un resolu utions give give the
37:29
occupied people the right to resist occupation by any means necessary including the
37:35
1960 um you know resolution against colonialism on behalf of decolonization
37:41
so Hamas leadership in attempting to end an occupation are not by that process
37:51
committing a war crime now there could be instances in the battlefield where
37:56
they went out there and kill children those crimes should be investigated certainly but blanket um War crime
38:04
charges against the Hass leadership is ludicrous especially given the icj the
38:11
international court of justice ruling on the South African complaint on Israel
38:16
the icj ruling doesn't say all sides are to blame it it directly points to um the
38:23
Israeli government and says there's plausible grounds for genocide because there's not only acts of genocide but
38:29
also statements of intent so it's it's doubly disappointing that Mr Karim Khan
38:36
Casey decides to frame this press conference in a all sides are bad manner
38:43
uh firstly he has no legitimacy to hold his job as lead prosecutor in my opinion
38:49
and secondly I think it's shoty work to have hidden behind all sides are bad at
38:55
this time 7 months in it is of course entirely uh obvious that the United
39:02
States acted as they did because the US is the shield and the pro provider of
39:08
weapons for Israel the United States has absolutely no legitimacy to complain
39:13
about what Israel is doing because the US is utterly complicit in Israel's war
39:19
just as the Israelis have been complicit in most of the ugly us Wars including
39:25
the war in Iraq not to mention that the right of resistance including armed resistance is actually enshrined um in
39:32
the UN in the Geneva Convention right um VJ I want to bring back um to the core
39:37
of this interview which is hyper imperialism now what is what does that
39:42
actually mean on the ground how does it impact people because there's also a lot of talk about um the US empire being on
39:50
a decline yet when we look around um it is still undeniably the most powerful
39:56
country not just militar um you know as most countries in the world still trade with the us or rely heavily on the US
40:04
for FDI for example for the countries to grow themselves um how do you
40:09
contextualize all of that well look um here's an interesting example um earlier
40:17
in the last couple of years Zambia which is in southern part of Africa south
40:24
southern part of Africa Zambia and the Democratic Republic Republic of Congo which is the richest country in the
40:29
world you know the DRC um is home to about2 trillion dollar worth of of of
40:35
resources which it cannot control uh so it's it's the country with the richest resources but has the poorest population
40:43
um in the world so the DRC and Zambia came together because they have a great
40:49
deal of complimentarity in their economy they wanted to build effectively a
40:55
regional value chain the these countries produce Cobalt they produce copper they
41:00
produce everything that goes into making a battery and so they said we will
41:06
together make a battery and you know some of the financing came from the
41:11
Chinese the Chinese are very involved in the DRC and the Chinese were increasingly involved in Zambia but it
41:18
was effectively a Zambian DRC project well this was not going to be permitted
41:25
by the United States because they they didn't want to see two things happen one Regional commodity chains develop in
41:32
Africa which would cut out um us multinational corporations and secondly
41:37
any Chinese influence in this at all so the United States did a couple of things one is a very close um agent of the US
41:46
government uh who's based in a thi tank in South Africa um you know which is a
41:52
think tank funded by the Oppenheimer mining family um this Think Tank had its
41:59
executive director insinuate himself into the government of of Zambia the
42:04
current president um and this U you know kind of operation let's say I'm using a
42:10
very strong word but this operation effectively influenced the Zambian president against going on on
42:18
this alone then the United States assembles the African leadership whoever
42:23
they could get in Washington for a US Africa Summit where they hor swaged the
42:29
drc's president who had himself gone to Beijing and made various deals with the
42:34
Chinese they re assessed a major infrastructure funding deal with the
42:40
Chinese export import bank and so on anyway these guys were all draon to Washington DC they were brought together
42:47
and then the United States announced the lito corridor project which is what would link um Zambia the DRC Angola and
42:56
the United States into a project to remove mined minerals and metals from
43:03
Zambia the DRC through a port in the lito corridor port in Angola and take it
43:10
out and maintain a globalized um you know value chain not allow this Regional
43:16
African value chain to develop well this is classic hyper imperialism right the Zambia and the DRC didn't need the
43:23
United States in fact they were doing this by themselves they were fine the US insinuates itself military threats
43:31
threats to cut uh IMF assistance in getting the debt refinance particularly
43:37
for the DRC and so on lots of pressure on these countries um constraint of
43:42
their sovereignty and then boom you know they basically have to surrender um in
43:48
this case there was no direct military pressure but we see a lot of direct
43:54
military pressure when it counts you know uh ships off the coastline of the
44:00
country um you know Venezuela facing south the southern command of the United
44:06
States military exercises just off the coastline threatening an invasion and so
44:11
on these threats are not empty Honduras faced a coup data in 2009 um Bolivia had
44:20
a coup data in 2019 I mean again these are not idle threats of overthrowing
44:27
governments and so on you know you you you get too far you start making deals
44:33
with the Chinese we're going to get you I mean who knows what happened to Imran Khan's government in Pakistan who knows
44:40
what happened in Sri Lanka um when you know uh you know the the new government
44:47
with only one Member of Parliament suddenly becomes the government in charge one one Member of Parliament he
44:53
happened to be a pro us fellow I mean you know who knows what what's going on in these these places lots of arm
45:00
twisting lots of threats there's a good reason why n chamski says United States
45:06
government acts like the Mafia That's hyper imperialism That's The Godfather
45:12
theory of international relations uh you can't get what you want you go and
45:17
threaten somebody I'm going to put the head of your favorite horse in your bed
45:22
now with all of if you look at the past several decades um as the us you know
45:28
goes through this hyper imperialism they're trying to you know engage in in various different Wars a lot of these
45:34
wars they ended up losing whether you look at Vietnam Iraq their invasion of
45:40
Afghanistan fundamentally you know they may they have you know caused a lot of damage but they didn't exactly win
45:48
simultaneously what has what was going on is we are seeing countries in the global South obviously at the top of it
45:54
China you know growing from strength to strength IND going from strength to strength and all of this naturally what
46:00
people would say next is that we're seeing an Empire on Decline and we're moving away from a unipolar world to a
46:07
multi-polar world but you've been critical of the term multipolarity in in
46:13
numerous of your interviews and and and writings why do you not like the term multipolarity what would be a more
46:19
accurate way of describing where we are heading towards in the near future well firstly I don't think there are multiple
46:26
poll being created I think you know it it has a tendency to assume that there
46:33
are that there's a kind of flatness involved that there's a global North Pole there's a Chinese pole there's a
46:39
this pole and a that no there is one threatening power in the world and that
46:44
is the global North led by the United States that's the threatening power most
46:49
of countries are trying to live with some form of Peace development and so on
46:56
what what you are seeing is more regionalism than multipolarity you know you're seeing the development again of
47:03
the South American region I live in Santiago in Chile I'm talking to you from here um you know Santiago Chile was
47:10
one of the the the anchors of the regionalism project in the 1970s now
47:16
it's Brazil the biggest economy in the region um we see with the ARP the
47:22
regional economic uh Trade Agreement in arp we see the formation of a very
47:28
interesting uh you know asan Le um you know regionalism in Asia the Shanghai
47:35
cooperation organization a kind of regionalism in Central Asia and so on
47:40
that's the direction that's the tendency of movement it's not towards the
47:45
creation of a counterveiling pole in Beijing and another pole in mosco you
47:51
know the Chinese have been saying for years we don't want to become a pole we don't want to be seen in a direct
47:57
confrontation with the us we want to collaborate with everybody you know their phrase basically is more
48:04
collaboration less confrontation and in a way the atmosphere around a term like
48:10
multipolarity to me suggests confrontation rather than collaboration
48:15
and I don't think the way after hyper imperialism is back to inter-imperialist
48:21
conflict or something like that you know multipolar conflict I think we're trying
48:27
to go into a world of collaboration where the United Nations Charter is taken seriously where development is
48:34
more important than bombing you know you said that the US government loses Wars in fact it depends what you mean the US
48:42
government is very able to destroy Bridges it has a hard time building them
48:47
that's really the the essence of it you know they can destroy anything um they can come into Malaysia and wipe out
48:53
large sections of kalampur but they may not be able to govern qual Lampur they
48:59
may not be able to get legitimacy from the people but they can destroy a lot of stuff they wiped out the infrastructure
49:06
in Afghanistan but they couldn't control what was happening after that so I
49:11
wouldn't say the end the US government um you know entirely loses Wars depends
49:16
what their objective is Right their objective is to hammer their Rivals you know if they went to war against Iran it
49:23
would be to destroy Iran's capacity to be independent and then Iran would have to be dependent on the United States
49:30
that's principally what they would like and and you see what happened with Iraq they destroyed Iraq hoping that Iraq
49:37
would get dependent on the US what ended up happening was Iraq largely became dependent on Iran um that's that's what
49:44
happened there are miscalculations in in hyper imperialism but nonetheless there
49:50
is that tendency of wanting to end the
49:55
subordination of people on the other side of the international division of humanity ending subordination is more
50:01
important in a way than direct Colonial control um and I think that's why they
50:08
don't care if they quote unquote lose Wars it's far more important to win a
50:14
dependence from countries on the United States vij I could speak to you for
50:19
hours but we have to wind down this conversation so I'll ask um this last
50:24
one where do we go from from here in this in the face of USL imperialism now
50:30
hyper imperialism what are the Alternatives that we have um economic
50:36
and political um especially since you've also said um you know try to remind
50:42
people on the left and you know when you go on these various interviews that the political shift that is occurring isn't
50:48
necessarily going to be led by you know socialist in in the sense of you know it's not going to be led by the
50:54
Grassroots International proletarian movement um with some you know socially
51:00
liberal values and and things like that necessarily um you know you know the way
51:05
many people on the left would be hoping for so what exactly are we going to move
51:11
towards and what should people on the broad left be working towards in this crucial period see I very much believe
51:18
that in the period ahead the two concepts that need to Anchor our thinking are the concepts of sovereignty
51:25
and dignity countries want to exercise sovereignty over their territory having
51:30
tried to exercise sovereignty they have to ensure that their people lead dignified lives um if we are pushing in
51:37
this direction this demand that the people lead dignified lives will I think
51:44
um you know will move into um the Revival of a socialist project because
51:49
for people to lead dignified lives you can't lead dignified lives in unequal Society that's going to revive a kind of
51:57
socialist alternative but in the interim I think it's very important that we
52:02
spend our time fighting to build sovereignty of our processes and to
52:07
build the Dignity of our people a country like Malaysia for instance um even during the financial crisis in Asia
52:14
uh you know put Capital controls in place to defend the sovereignty of capital markets in Malaysia those kind
52:21
of instruments they are not things that are necessarily socialist you know but they are about sovereignty but once you
52:29
go beyond articulating sovereignty and start thinking about dignity well you're on the road to socialism that's that's
52:36
as far as I think we'll get in our lifetime and then we'll have to say to the Next Generation here's the Baton
52:43
keep running VJ on that note thank you so much for joining me today thanks a
52:48
lot great to be with you that was vij prashad he's the director of The tricontinental Institute of social
52:53
research and I'm B dasan Yan on beyond the best box bfm 89.9
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