Donald Trump has shown time and again the bare face of Western imperialism. The bloodthirsty nature of the United States as never been clearer. This, of course, is nothing new. The US has a storied history of murder, torture and destruction of any idea daring to oppose its imperialism. Trump has done us all a favour and made this abundantly evident unlike his predecessors who cower behind vague notions of democracy. At least Trump openly states he wants Iran’s oil and is willing to bomb them to the stone ages, unlike Obama who accepted the Nobel Peace Prize whilst bombing Yemen.
As much as we understand this, we must also accept our part in the world of today. It is disturbing to see videos of influencers lamenting the illegal, unilateral bombing of Iran only because it disrupts their travel plans. As if the thousands of lives lost in Iran is not the tragedy at hand compared to cancelled flights. It is saddening to hear people around me worry of rising fuel costs as well as the prices of goods without expressing empathy for Iran as a sovereign nation under the yoke of the United States.
It leaves me with a question. Why should we not suffer? It is not as if we are, any of us, isolated from the world around us. Iran has made that abundantly clear by just blocking off the Straits of Hormuz. We are all part of a living, breathing entity, a system which we all make up a part. Yet, why should we not share in the suffering of one part of the system when another tortures it?
The pain and destruction put upon the world not just with the bombing of Iran but also the kidnapping of President Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores from Venezuela, the blockade of Cuba and the various reciprocal tariffs enacted by Trump, should be felt collectively. This is not even counting countless regime changes, weapon supply, destabilisation and encirclement from the United States throughout its history. Going back even further, we can draw a clear line with the greed of imperialism stretching from colonial times until today. In the end, we were enslaved and remain slaves of the Western man.
Today, when the West decides to hobble alternative regimes that oppose it, that are looking to divest from the US Dollar for the Chinese Yuan or nationalise mineral reserves for local production or organise amongst themselves for alternative trade agreements, why do we see it as separate from us? The core of these actions is simply that no country outside the West is allowed to develop freely. No people other than those who have been in charge for centuries are allowed decide for themselves. All must conform to a system that ultimately extracts the wealth of the global south to feed the greed of the global north.
What we are seeing today is the breaking down of a capitalist system from the very top. The United States and its imperialist allies have for so long sought a mimisation of their production costs mainly through outsourcing critical business functions and procuring raw materials from the third world, taking advantage of lower salaries and worse benefits, their own people now suffer. This is especially true in the era of imperialism these days where profit realized by corporations are hoarded more and more by the billionaire class. Gone are they days post-World War 2 where the treat of leftism was so prevalent, capitalists were forced to share dividends with their workers in order to stave off the collapse of the entire system.
It is in this decay, to prevent the unity of workers overthrowing the owners of capital, that politics in the West has turned to fascism and war. Trump desperately seeks to bully the rest of the world to keep depending on the United States to fund their ailing society. In truth, the US in its current iteration cannot survive and should fall to its natural demise. What they need is for their workers to seize the riches held by their ruling class. Unlikely as that is to happen, the rest of us are looking at continuous oppression from these Western governments clinging desperately to their waning relevancy.
Where does that leave us? Well, either we bend the knee and acquiesce to the whims of the largest terrorist organisation in the world (read: the United States) or we do all that we can to divest from this tyrant. We must realise that the rate of oppression from the imperialists will only heighten as their capitalists ruthlessly seek to maximise their profits. The day will come where even the most comfortable of us workers live as paupers in an ever-decaying world.
It is time to wake up to the reality of the world that we live in. The United States and its allies are existential threats to all our way of life. If we want better for our people, even just with the simple ability to choose our own fate, there can no longer be dependence on the Global North. We must build cooperation between us and defend ourselves against the aging aristocrats of the West.
The destruction in Iran, Venezuela and Cuba is not novel nor will it be the last. We must move proactively to deprive them of the riches they are currently plundering from us. There needs to be a reorganisation of economic forces to produce for the needs of the Global South by Global South firms. There is no need for Western companies to develop our countries or give us jobs, we can do that ourselves. And we can trade between ourselves on the basis of respect instead of coercion.
Today, Malaysia must decide unequivocally to back Iran against the United States and move to coerce the US to back off economically and politically. Tomorrow, we should convene our counterparts in the Global South to plan for a more stable future for us and without our once colonial masters.
Arveent Kathirchelvan
Parti Sosialis Malaysia