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Mess: The Fourth
Newsletter (2024)</span></span></span></strong>
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<div id="attachment_94893"
style="text-align: center; margin-top:3em; margin-bottom:3em;"
class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-94893" decoding="async"
fetchpriority="high"
class="wp-image-94893 size-full img-responsive mcRssImage"
src="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Luis-Felipe-Noe-Argentina-La-naturaleza-y-los-mitos-II-1975.jpg"
alt="Luis Felipe Noé (Argentina), La naturaleza y los mitos II (‘Nature and Myths II’), 1975."
srcset="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Luis-Felipe-Noe-Argentina-La-naturaleza-y-los-mitos-II-1975.jpg 950w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Luis-Felipe-Noe-Argentina-La-naturaleza-y-los-mitos-II-1975-300x207.jpg 300w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Luis-Felipe-Noe-Argentina-La-naturaleza-y-los-mitos-II-1975-768x531.jpg 768w"
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style="max-width: 100%;width: 100%;padding-bottom: 0;display: inline;vertical-align: bottom;border: 0;height: auto;outline: none;text-decoration: none;-ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic;"
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<p
style="text-align: center;margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><small>Luis
Felipe Noé
(Argentina), <i>La
naturaleza y los
mitos II </i>(‘Nature
and Myths II’), 1975.</small></p>
</div>
</div>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Dear
friends,</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Greetings
from the desk of <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=45cfc54e42&e=d206d0a40d"
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moz-do-not-send="true">Tricontinental:
Institute for Social
Research</a>.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">‘The
West is in danger’, <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=315b22c9d7&e=d206d0a40d"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">warned</a>
Argentina’s new president,
Javier Milei at this year’s
World Economic Forum (WEF)
meeting in Davos,
Switzerland. In his
dangerously appealing <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=b7be904d67&e=d206d0a40d"
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moz-do-not-send="true">style</a>,
Milei blamed ‘collectivism’
– that is, social welfare,
taxes, and the state – as
the ‘root cause’ of the
world’s problems, leading to
widespread impoverishment.
The only way forward, Milei
declared, is through ‘free
enterprise, capitalism, and
economic freedom’. Milei’s
speech marked a return to
the orthodoxy of Milton
Friedman and the Chicago
Boys, who pushed forward an
ideology of social
cannibalism as the basis for
their neoliberal agenda.
Since the 1970s, this
scorched earth policy has
devasted much of the Global
South through the structural
adjustment programmes of the
International Monetary Fund,
but also created factory
deserts in the West (what
Donald Trump, in his
inauguration address in
2017, <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=79984fa9fc&e=d206d0a40d"
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moz-do-not-send="true">called</a>
the ‘American carnage’).
Therein lies the confounding
logic of the far right: on
the one side, calling for
the billionaire class to
dominate society in their
interest (which produces the
social carnage) and then, on
the other side, inflaming
the victims of said carnage
to fight against policies
that would benefit them.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Milei
is right in his overall
judgment: the West <i>is</i>
in danger, but not because
of social democratic
policies; it is in danger
because of its inability to
come to terms with its slow
demise as the dominating
bloc in the world.</p>
<div
class="single-post--content--media-block single-post--content--image"><img
decoding="async"
class="aligncenter wp-image-94903 size-full img-responsive mcRssImage"
src="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Covers-e1706025205302.jpg"
alt=""
style="max-width: 100%;width: 100%;padding-bottom: 0;display: inline;vertical-align: bottom;border: 0;height: auto;outline: none;text-decoration: none;-ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic;"
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width="950" border="0"></div>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">From
Tricontinental: Institute
for Social Research and
Global South Insights (GSI)
come two important texts on
the changing global
landscape: a landmark study,
<a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=b13179e7b3&e=d206d0a40d"
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moz-do-not-send="true"><i>Hyper-Imperialism:
A Dangerous, Decadent
New Stage</i></a>, and
our seventy-second dossier,
<a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=d6543de002&e=d206d0a40d"
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moz-do-not-send="true"><i>The
Churning of the World
Order</i></a> (the
dossier is an ‘executive
summary’ of the study, so I
will be referring to them as
if they were one text). We
believe that this is the
most significant theoretical
statement that our institute
has made in its eight-year
history.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">In
both <i>Hyper-Imperialism</i>
and <i>The Churning of the
World Order</i> we make
four important points:</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">First,
through a deep analysis of
the concepts of the Global
North and the Global South,
we show that the former acts
as a bloc, while the latter
is merely a loose grouping.
The Global North is led by
the United States, which has
created several instruments
to extend its authority over
the other countries in the
bloc (many of which are
historic colonial powers and
settler-colonial societies).
These platforms include the
Five Eyes intelligence
alliance (initially set up
in 1941 between the US and
UK, the network has now
expanded to Fourteen Eyes),
the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation (NATO, set up
in 1949), and the Group of
Seven (G7, set up in 1974).
Through these and other
formations, the United
States and its political
allies within the Global
North are able to exercise
authority over their own
countries and the countries
of the Global South.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">In
contrast, the countries of
the Global South have
historically been much more
disorganised, with some,
looser alliances and
linkages around regional and
political affiliations. The
Global South has neither a
political centre nor an
ideologically driven
project.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">The
analysis in the texts is
detailed, relying upon
public databases and
databases built by GSI. The
bottom line is that there is
one world system that is
managed dangerously by an
imperialist bloc. There are
no multiple imperialisms, no
inter-imperialist conflict.</p>
<div
class="single-post--content--media-block single-post--content--image">
<div id="attachment_94923"
style="text-align: center; margin-top:3em; margin-bottom:3em;"
class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-94923" decoding="async"
class="wp-image-94923 size-full img-responsive mcRssImage"
src="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Mahmud-al-Obaidi-Iraq-Untitled-2008-1.jpg"
alt=""
srcset="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Mahmud-al-Obaidi-Iraq-Untitled-2008-1.jpg 950w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Mahmud-al-Obaidi-Iraq-Untitled-2008-1-300x169.jpg 300w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Mahmud-al-Obaidi-Iraq-Untitled-2008-1-768x432.jpg 768w"
sizes="(max-width: 950px) 100vw, 950px"
style="max-width: 100%;width: 100%;padding-bottom: 0;display: inline;vertical-align: bottom;border: 0;height: auto;outline: none;text-decoration: none;-ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic;"
moz-do-not-send="true"
width="950" border="0">
<p
style="text-align: center;margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><small>Mahmud
al-Obaidi (Iraq), <i>Untitled</i>,
2008.</small></p>
</div>
</div>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Second,
the platforms of the Global
North exercise power over
the world system through a
number of vectors (military,
financial, economic, social,
cultural) and through a
range of instruments (NATO,
the International Monetary
Fund, information systems).
With the gradual decline of
the Global North’s control
over the international
financial system, raw
materials, technology, and
science, this bloc mainly
exercises its power through
military force and through
the management of
information. In these texts,
we do not go over the
question of information,
although we have previously
<a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=556d59c40d&e=d206d0a40d"
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moz-do-not-send="true">written</a>
about it and will take it up
again in a study on digital
sovereignty. The focus of
these texts is largely on
military spending, where we
show that the US-led bloc
accounts for 74.3% of world
military spending and that
the US spends 12.6 times
more than the world average
on a per capita basis
(Israel, second to the US,
spends 7.2 times above the
per capita world average).
To put this into
perspective, China accounts
for 10% of world military
spending and its per capita
military spending is 22
times less than that of the
United States.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Such
enormous spending on the
military is not innocent.
Not only does it come at the
<a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=3c6b08414b&e=d206d0a40d"
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moz-do-not-send="true">cost</a>
of social spending, the
Global North’s military
power is used to threaten
and intimidate countries,
and – if they are
disobedient – to punish them
with hellfire and brimstone.
In 2022 alone, these
imperialist nations made 317
deployments of their
military forces to countries
in the Global South. The
highest number of these
deployments (31) were made
to Mali, a nation strongly
seeking sovereignty, and
which was the first of the
Sahel states to stage
popular-backed coups (2020
and 2021) and <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=8a2d6f10eb&e=d206d0a40d"
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moz-do-not-send="true">eject</a>
the French military from its
territory (2022).</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Between
1776 and 2019, the United
States carried out at least
392 interventions worldwide,
half of them between 1950
and 2019. This includes the
terrible, illegal war
against Iraq in 2003 (at
this year’s WEF meeting,
Iraq’s Prime Minister
Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=298ae6a09d&e=d206d0a40d"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">asked</a>
for Global North troops to
leave Iraq). This vast
military spending by the
Global North, led by the
United States, reflects the
militarisation of its
foreign policy. One of the
little remarked aspects of
this militarisation is the
development of a theory in
both the United States and
United Kingdom of ‘defence
diplomacy’ (as it was <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=d2277fba86&e=d206d0a40d"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">noted</a>
in the UK Ministry of
Defence’s <i>Strategic
Defence Review</i> of
1998). In the United States,
strategic thinkers <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=0adeb7be17&e=d206d0a40d"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">use</a>
the acronym DIME to reflect
on the sources of national
power (diplomacy,
informational, military, and
economic).</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Last
year, the European Union and
NATO – the institutions at
the heart of the Global
North – jointly <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=6a70c852c0&e=d206d0a40d"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">pledged</a>
to ‘mobilise the combined
set of instruments at our
disposal, be they political,
economic, or military, to
pursue our common objectives
to the benefit of our one
billion citizens’. In case
you did not catch it, that
power – mostly military
power and military diplomacy
– is not to serve humanity,
but to serve only <i>their</i>
‘citizens’.</p>
<div
class="single-post--content--media-block single-post--content--image">
<div id="attachment_94933"
style="text-align: center; margin-top:3em; margin-bottom:3em;"
class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-94933" decoding="async"
loading="lazy"
class="wp-image-94933 size-full img-responsive mcRssImage"
src="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Antonio-Ole-Angola-The-Maculusso-Mural-2014.jpg"
alt="António Ole (Angola), The Maculusso Mural, 2014."
srcset="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Antonio-Ole-Angola-The-Maculusso-Mural-2014.jpg 950w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Antonio-Ole-Angola-The-Maculusso-Mural-2014-300x165.jpg 300w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Antonio-Ole-Angola-The-Maculusso-Mural-2014-768x422.jpg 768w"
sizes="(max-width: 950px) 100vw, 950px"
style="max-width: 100%;width: 100%;padding-bottom: 0;display: inline;vertical-align: bottom;border: 0;height: auto;outline: none;text-decoration: none;-ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic;"
moz-do-not-send="true"
width="950" border="0">
<p
style="text-align: center;margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><small>António
Ole (Angola), <i>The
Maculusso Mural</i>,
2014.</small></p>
</div>
</div>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Third,
Part IV of our <i>Hyper-Imperialism</i>
study is called ‘The West in
Decline’, and looks at the
evidence for this trend from
a perspective that rejects
Milei’s ‘the West is in
danger’ fearmongering. The
facts show that since the
start of the <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=69e46a8447&e=d206d0a40d"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">Third
Great Depression</a>, the
Global North has struggled
to maintain its control over
the world economy; its
instruments – monopolies
over technology and raw
materials, as well as
dominion over foreign direct
investment – have
fundamentally eroded. When
China surpassed the United
States’ share of global
industrial output in 2004,
the United States lost
hegemony in production (by
2022, the former held a
25.7% share versus the 9.7%
held by the latter). Given
that the United States is
now dependent on large scale
net capital imports, which
reached $1 trillion in 2022,
the US has little internal
capability to provide
economic advantages to its
Global North or Global South
allies. Owners of capital in
the United States have
siphoned off their profits
from the country’s exchequer
creating the economic
conditions for the social
carnage that afflicts the
country. The old political
coalitions rooted around the
two parties in the United
States are in flux, with no
space within US political
system to develop a
political project to
exercise hegemony over the
world economy through
legitimacy and consent. That
is why the US-led Global
North resorts to force and
intimidation, building its
massive military apparatus
by increasing its own public
debt (since there is little
domestic consensus to use
that borrowing to build the
infrastructure and
productive base of the
country).</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">The
root of the <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=6d7fe3f84e&e=d206d0a40d"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">New
Cold War</a> imposed by
the United States on China
is that China has outpaced
the United States in net
fixed capital formation,
whilst the US has seen a
gradual decline. Every year
since 1992, China has been a
net exporter of capital,
this surplus of capital
creation has made it
possible to finance
international projects such
as the Belt and Road
Initiative, now ten years
old.</p>
<div
class="single-post--content--media-block single-post--content--image">
<div id="attachment_94943"
style="text-align: center; margin-top:3em; margin-bottom:3em;"
class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img
aria-describedby="caption-attachment-94943" decoding="async"
loading="lazy"
class="wp-image-94943 size-full img-responsive mcRssImage"
src="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/El-Meya-Algeria-Les-Moudjahidates-2021.jpg"
alt=""
srcset="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/El-Meya-Algeria-Les-Moudjahidates-2021.jpg 918w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/El-Meya-Algeria-Les-Moudjahidates-2021-290x300.jpg 290w, https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/El-Meya-Algeria-Les-Moudjahidates-2021-768x795.jpg 768w"
sizes="(max-width: 918px) 100vw, 918px"
style="max-width: 100%;width: 100%;padding-bottom: 0;display: inline;vertical-align: bottom;border: 0;height: auto;outline: none;text-decoration: none;-ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic;"
moz-do-not-send="true"
width="918" border="0">
<p
style="text-align: center;margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;"><small>El
Meya (Algeria), <i>Les
Moudjahidates</i>,
2021.</small></p>
</div>
</div>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Fourth,
we analyse the emergence of
new organisations rooted in
the Global South, such as
the Shanghai Cooperation
Organisation (2001), the
BRICS10 (2009), and the
Group of Friends in Defence
of the UN Charter (2021).
These interregional
platforms are in an
embryonic stage, but they
provide evidence for the
growth of a new regionalism
and multilateralism.
Although these formations do
not seek to operate as a
bloc to counter the Global
North’s bloc, they reflect
what we have previously
called a ‘new mood’ in the
Global South. The new mood
is neither anti-imperialist
nor anti-capitalist, but is
shaped by four main vectors:</p>
<ul>
<li
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><strong>Multilateralism
and regionalism</strong>
centred on the creation of
Global South-anchored
platforms for cooperation.</li>
<li
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><strong>New
modernisation</strong>
centred on constructing
regional and continental
economies that use local
currencies in place of the
dollar for trade and
reserves.</li>
<li
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><strong>Sovereignty</strong>,
which would create
barriers to Western
intervention. This
includes military
entanglements and digital
colonialism, both of which
facilitate US intelligence
interventions.</li>
<li
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><strong>Reparations</strong>,
which would entail
collective bargaining to
compensate for the West’s
century-old debt traps and
abuse of the excess carbon
budget as well as its much
longer-reaching legacy of
colonialism.</li>
</ul>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">The
analysis in these texts goes
deep beneath the surface,
providing a historical
materialist assessment of
our present crises.
Documents produced by the
institutions of the Global
North, such as the WEF’s <i>Global
Risks</i> <a
href="https://thetricontinental.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6a79324d3b4acfde1e7e546c6&id=2fb0c0ea3e&e=d206d0a40d"
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;"
moz-do-not-send="true">report</a>
for 2024, provide a list of
the dangers that we face
(climate catastrophe, social
polarisation, economic
downturns) but cannot
explain them. Our approach,
we believe, provides a
theory to understand these
perils as the outcome of the
world system managed by the
hyper-imperialist bloc.</p>
<div
class="single-post--content--media-block single-post--content--image">
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;"><img
decoding="async"
loading="lazy"
class="alignnone wp-image-94953 size-full img-responsive mcRssImage"
src="https://thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/20240122_Farough-Farrokhzad-e1706025621163.jpg"
alt=""
style="max-width: 100%;width: 100%;padding-bottom: 0;display: inline;vertical-align: bottom;border: 0;height: auto;outline: none;text-decoration: none;-ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic;"
moz-do-not-send="true"
width="840" border="0"></p>
</div>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">In
thinking about these texts,
my mind wandered to the work
of the Iraqi poet Buland
al-Haydari (1926–1996). When
all seemed futile,
al-Haydari wrote that ‘the
sun will not rise’ and that
‘at the bottom of the house,
already dead, are the steps
of my children, reduced to
silence’. But even then,
when we ‘were without
power’, there remains hope.
His civilisation drowns, but
then ‘you arrived with the
paddle’, he sings. ‘Such is
the history of our
yesterday, and its taste is
bitterness’, he concludes,
‘such is our slow walk, the
procession of our dignity:
our only good until the hour
when will rise, finally, a
free paddle’.</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">That
anticipation defines a
classic by the Iranian poet
Forough Farrokhzad
(1934–1967), ‘Someone Who Is
Not Like Anyone’ (1966):</p>
<blockquote
style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">I’ve
had a dream that someone
is coming.<br>
I’ve dreamt of a red star,<br>
and my eyes lids keep
twitching<br>
and my shoes keep snapping
to attention<br>
and may I go blind<br>
if I’m lying.<br>
I’ve dreamt of that red
star<br>
when I wasn’t asleep.<br>
Someone is coming,<br>
someone is coming<br>
someone better.</p>
</blockquote>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Warmly,</p>
<p
style="margin: 10px 0;padding: 0;mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #202020;font-family: Helvetica;font-size: 16px;line-height: 150%;text-align: left;">Vijay</p>
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