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Pankaj Mishra: A generation of failed politicians has trapped the west in a tawd
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A member of the Bush administration brashly affirmed its arrogance of power in 2004 after what then seemed a successful invasion of Iraq: “When we act,” he boasted, “we create our own reality.” A “pretty crappy generation”, Judt concluded, “when you come to think of it.”
One cannot but think of the reality it made as mayhem in Asia and Africa reaches European and North American cities. But those of us from countries where many Anglo-American institutions were once admirable models have their own melancholy reasons to reflect on their swift decay.
As another annus horribilis lurched to a close, the evidence of moral and intellectual sloth seemed unavoidable. In the Christmas issue of the Spectator, Rod Liddle described Calais as “a jungle of largely Muslim asylum seekers aching to get into Britain – presumably to be hugged” by “the liberals”. In an interview in the same issue, the prime minister confessed that Liddle “does make me laugh”. The chumminess seemed to confirm Amit Chaudhuri’s strong recent “impression”, acquired from BBC documentaries about India, that Britain comprises “male buddies”, whose “capacity for spontaneous insight isn’t that far away from that of Jeremy Clarkson”.
Power, it seems, does a lot more than corrupt; it also coarsens and stultifies. Judt’s diagnosis of an unbearable lightness of being also applies to many younger people exalted into positions of influence by the accident of their birth in rich and powerful countries – members of ruling classes who assumed that history ended in 1989 with the fall of communism and their unchallenged supremacy.It was still hard not to be puzzled by the casual malevolence of the lead headline in the Times on Boxing Day: “Muslims ‘silent on terror’”. A few days earlier, candidates in the Republican presidential primaries, aspiring leaders of the free world, had offered the following modest proposals: ban Muslims from travel, kill families of terrorists, shoot down Russian planes, close down parts of the internet, carpet-bomb Syria.
It is possible to feel slight relief that at least the current chief operator of America’s war machine was originally formed, intellectually and emotionally, by an experience of the world common to most of humanity: one of powerlessness and marginality. As his approval ratings sank last month, Barack Obama exasperatedly insisted that American leadership “is not just a matter of us bombing somebody”. He is worldly enough to realise that, as his hero James Baldwin wrote during the futile American bombing of Indochina: “Force does not work the way its advocates seem to think it does.” Instead of impressing its victim, it reveals to him “the weakness, even the panic of his adversary and this revelation invests the victim with patience”.
Thus al-Qaida assumed its most vicious form where it had never existed, and then morphed into Daesh and me-too franchises in numerous countries. The auto-intoxicated teenage murderer now confounds the leaden cold war holdovers stalking “extremist ideology”. “It is ultimately fatal,” Baldwin warned, “to create too many victims.” For then, “however long the battle may go on” the wielder of superior firepower “can never be the victor; on the contrary, all his energies, his life, are bound up in a terror he cannot articulate, a mystery he cannot read, a battle he cannot win”.
The modern west has been admirably different from other civilisations in its ability to counterbalance the arrogance of power with recognition of its excesses. Now, however, it is not only the bankers who radically expand our notion of impunity. Their chums in politics and the media coax, with criminal irresponsibility, the public into deeper fear and insecurity – and into blaming their overall plight on various enemies (immigrants, budding terrorists in Calais’s jungle, an un-American alien in the White House, Muslims and darkies in general).This is the treacherous impasse to which 14 years of escalating wars and bombing campaigns have brought us. The refusal to learn from their failures should have broadly suggested that “the establishment”, as a secret Pentagon memo in 1967 to President Lyndon Johnson suggested, “is out of its mind”. But such brutal self-assessments belong to another time of shame, guilt and responsibility, when tainted public figures tended to slink, or be pushed, into obscurity.
Racism, a beast cornered if not tamed after much struggle, has lumbered back to civil society in the solemn guise of “reforming” Islam. Tony Blair summons us to worldwide battle on behalf of western values while embodying, with his central Asian clients, their comprehensive negation. The handful of media institutions and individuals that are not obliged to flesh out Rupert Murdoch’s tweets on Muslims seem to be struggling to remain viable in an increasingly retrogressive political culture. Even the BBC seems determined not to stray far from the Daily Mail’s editorial line.
Unsurprisingly, we witness, as Judt pointed out, “no external inputs, no new kinds of people, only the political class breeding itself”. “The old ways of mass movements, communities organised around an ideology, even religious or political ideas, trade unions and political parties to leverage public opinion into political influence” have disappeared. Indeed, the slightest reminder of this democratic past incites the technocrats of politics, business and the media into paroxysms of scorn.
Having acted recklessly to create their own reality, they have managed to trap all of us in a tawdry nightmare – a male buddy film of singular fatuousness. At the same time, reality-making has ceased to be the prerogative of the American imperium or of the French and British chumocrats, who lost their empires long ago and are still trying to find a role for themselves.
Some random fanatic, it turns out, can make their reality far more quickly, coercing the world’s oldest democracies into endless war, racial-religious hatred and paranoia. Such is the great power surrendered by the crappy generation and its epigones. The generations to come will scarcely believe it.
comments (916)
Why do people give their future to such idiots?
Because power clutivates its own and has historally abhored moderation and outside influence.
Because, assisted by the media, they have narrowed down the spectrum of political choice for voters. Centre-Right vs Far-Right neoliberalism ... you pays yer money ...."Why do people give their future to such idiots?"
What would effectively benefit the masses has been carefully excluded from the political arena or rendered insignificant.Have to agree. This is why the Bernie Sanders campaign is of vital importance: it may be our last chance to wrest some semblance of informed democracy from the claws of corporate hegemony in the political arena. It has a better chance of success than many think, as many people currently their opinions handed to them by the corporate media machine which does exclude a huge swathe of reality. Miracle and wonder, some of us can still think without having our thoughts pre-packaged!
But yes, if you can only choose between Brand A and Brand B, the manufacturer is still the same company and it's ONLY about marketing.
Racism, a beast cornered if not tamed after much struggle, has lumbered back to civil society in the solemn guise of “reforming” Islam
Muslims are not a race. Islam is a political ideology like any other, just dressed up as a religion. I oppose all fascism and refuse to be called a racist for doing so. I for one have had enough.
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No, its a religion. It also has different interpretations like every single other large religion. It takes about 60 seconds internet research to find this out, rather than regurgitating the kind of shit that the tabloids like to peddle for the reasons hinted at in the article.
The interpretation being followed by Isis, Al Qaeda before it and frankly whoever comes after it is the one being promulgated around the world by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States, who are our allies. Extremely good allies, who provide funding to the party currently in government and who bend over backwards not to criticise them, but I digress.
Maybe that's what makes it so frightening - it's a religious war and we haven't seen one of those in a long time and the last one was brutal.
Well said! Frankly, I wonder if we are in today's equivalent of June 1914; a bunch of smug, self-satisfied "I'm all right Jack" no-brainers in charge, certain in their assurance that nothing can ever happen to break their status as "Masters of the Universe." I suppose I don't actually want another Great War; but, my God, what will it take to wipe the smirks off their faces and make them realize they're not lions, not even donkeys, donkey rear ends or dung beetles; they're neo-liberal know-nothings.
Western society was supposed to be able to learn from its mistakes. That was its great political virtue. Now it seems to be so sure of its manifest superiority that it does not even consider the possibility it might be mistaken. If its policies fail, its leaders now believe, it can only be because they weren't applied intensely enough.
We have somehow wandered into a situation where leaders of institutions utterly fail (see the eurozone over Greece, or neoliberalism in the UK) and keep their jobs / do not learn / are able to prevent others from taking over. Terrible really.
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Sadly, those,who now rule over us in the UK don't need "jobs". It is their inherited wealth and security from the very privations they impose o n the rest of is that enabled that class to behave like robber barons, while believing themselves to be our superiors. This is true of those ruling political elites everywhere, but especially in the UK where the chumocracy really has been exposed in the last 6months for the bunch of class -hating t#ss pots who are actually exercising their power to destroy lives of people just because they are poor, or ill, or disabled. They represent a class in which feudalism & fascism are the very stuff of life. We need a full rebellion against their take over, starting with the repeal of the 5 year fixed term parliament, which will be preceded by a period of mass unrest that is building up already to unseat these moronic bullies.
Would that include...
Racism, a beast cornered if not tamed after much struggle, has lumbered back to civil society in the solemn guise of “reforming” Islam.
Wanting reform of the punishment for/ death penalty for apostasy, the intolerance of free speech, particularly criticism of religion, riots and terrorism or perceived slights against islam, persecution of other religions and homosexuals, misogyny.
The belief that such intolerance feeds extremism and terrorism.
Sure, it's all racism - after all, it's easier to throw that insult at the problem than acknowledge that there's need for reform here.
No, that's the only part that's wrong.
While the denunciation of the Western elites and ideologies is richly deserved, it would be inadvisable to take one's eye off their non-Western counterparts.
For centuries radicals have put forward exactly these critiques of power (amongst others), but the stupid people don't listen, preferring to imagine that the problem is this elite class, or that state, or the other ideology, not the whole system of dominance and manipulation.
sambeckett2: All propagated and spread throughout the world by the West most cherished Ally, Saudi Arabia, the source of fanatical Wahhabism, Al Qaeda and many of the jihadis killing incent people in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen.
Yes Yemen where the Saudis and their Gulf mini-Allies have been bombing and killing thousands unreported in the Wests 'free' media and unrestrained by the US and its subordinate allies..
Nicely written. Politicians tend to exaggerate their achievements and under estimate the consequences of their actions.
Sorry, however this article is couched, it is the same "its all the wests fault" line, where no one but the west can put a foot wrong and all everyone in the world (apart from the west) wants is to spread love and happiness to their neighbours.
The article also chucks in the "racism towards Muslims", nonsense, given that a religious belief is not a racial issue.
Just for once I would like to see an article that raises the question of why, if it is being racially discriminated against and feeling that they do not have a stake in the communities in which they freely live, that motivates some Muslims to commit acts of terror against their fellow citizens, why don't we see the same behaviour from Buddhists, Shinto, Hindus, Jain monks and so on?Sorry, however this article is couched, it is the same "its all the wests fault" line,
Well yes, its saying that the West's actions are the Wests fault. Which many deny.
" "its all the wests fault" "
With regard to the ME , given that the west created the present boundaries, drained the most oil, armed them to the teeth , overthrew the Iranian democracy and destroyed Iraq well it looks to the casual observer that it is indeed all the west's fault .
You are right.
I wouldn't disagree that the west should be held to account for its actions but so must everyone else, terrorists, political leaders who steal /misuse aid, people who think its ok to slaughter kids for going to school, women who had the effrontery to be raped, and so on
Yes, some of us have been asking for a brand of analysis that gets beyond the 'my dad's bigger than your dad' schoolyard insults that pass for political dialogue for a long time. Politics is not about the game of clones in Westminster, it is about power and how this has been stripped from national legislatures in favour of anonymous corporate interests.
Those who paved the way for this abominable experiment - the Reagan's Bush's, Thatcher's and Blair's have a great deal to answer for. Interesting to see the current Blairites still manifesting not one whit of responsibility for the havoc and destruction they have caused; all indicative of a closed shop polity that sacrificed social democracy on the altar of the markets back in the 80's.
As to those who condemn the article as 'west bashing,' that's also indicative of an island mentality, shared by our American buddies, which speaks out of isolationism, fear, anxiety and despair. These sentiments are the consequences of actions caused by politicians, bankers, landowners, media moguls and corporate representatives - they are not the causes.
That 14% of the population can consider a political party with only two policies as any kind of alternative to the horror show in Westminster is indicative of a kind of thinking that can only emerge from those most disenfranchised from the base of just human values. Would any of these people like to tell me and others of my generation what my father sat in a Spitfire for?
He went as far as he could , push on -
Exactly!
Many here are saying 'well said' - but it is just lots of clever words twisted into a generic and simplistic West-bashing article.
To be fair, this space is geared toward 'simplistic' writing, as there's only so much room. If you want a comprehensive analysis of what's going on in the West you'll have to turn to very long programs or books.
Also, just because it's brief doesn't mean it's untrue, nor does it mean it doesn't need to be said, especially in the midst of all the self-congratulatory political pontification one gets exposed to at year's end.
Peace!
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In left wing ideology, criticism of the beliefs of nonwhite people is racist. Therefore, because racism is bad, don't criticize these beliefs. Ergo, Middle Eastern blaspheme laws apply in the West.
"In left wing ideology, criticism of the beliefs of nonwhite people is racist. "
Only In your head it seems, that's a very narrow view.
This comment is just another example of anti-left idealism is really no more than divisive tribalism, and is just as wrong as what it criticises.
The political left cannot solve the worlds problems, and the political right definitely cannot solve the worlds problems; as history now shows, both political wings have failed, miserably.
Its the domination of the right - who have held the reins for nearly 4 decades economically, and have thus set the global political agenda - which now needs to be held to account.
Either go beyond left and right, or accept, for democratic, reasons that left and right define, and need, each other. Sadly I fear the future does not look good.You deny that in left wing ideology it is racist to criticize the beliefs of non-whites, yet (1) not a single word of your post offers a critique of this view, and (2) the writer of this article explicitly equates criticism of Islam with racism. He says, in no uncertain terms, that the view that Islam needs to reform is disguised racism. You could, if you wished, object that this writer is not a representative of left wing ideology, but to me, he is. In fact, he is pretty much your stereotypical bourgeois leftist, I would contend.
Horribly accurate. We really are ruled by a self-serving collection of intellectually and emotionally compromised individuals. Their patron saint is Saint TINA (there is no alternative) as though they have arrived at the final solution for life, liberty and civilisation which must be defended from all contrary thoughts. Pangloss lives.
blaming their overall plight on various enemies (immigrants, budding terrorists in Calais’s jungle, an un-American alien in the White House, Muslims and darkies in general).
That's racism. Just as the Japanese were put in camps after Pearl Harbour, just as east Europeans are blamed for our young not being able to hold a job down.
As to the article, “the establishment" is out of its fucking mind. When millionaire politicians and their billionaire mates dominate political discussion and we have homeless people in the 5th richest country in the world, and don't even blink when hundreds of thousands of innocent people are murdered because they live in a hot, dry place (and we have to put up with rain and crappy telly), and we accept this, like it's normal??
Of course it is normal. There can only be winners and losers. We cannot all be winners. Human nature is to strive, and to dominate. In that process some suffering will occur. The Paradox is that Human Race continues to thrive and to overpopulate the earth despite its apparent efforts to annihalate itself.
Insufferably inhumane and insensitive comment. Human nature was born when killing others was by hand and was either to protect your land and/or possessions or take someone else's. WWII was the last time this happened on a grand scale.
'There can only be winners and losers'
If that was all human nature was, we'd be in a very sorry state.
Do you think we'd have had any kind of 'civilisation' if humans weren't hard wired to co-operate and assist each other? It's a pre-requisite of survival.
Hmmm....
The article is right to criticise a certain belief that 'the modern West can do no wrong.'
But it also makes it seem like the 'modern West can do no right.'
Both beliefs are utterly ignorant. The West may not be perfect, but I think you'll find it is relatively tolerant and thoughtful place. Yeah, sure, there are a few angry minorities who polarise society. But the vast majority - including, I hope, politicians like David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn - are hardly as reckless and intolerant as this article suggests. Indeed, the media, including the rightwing papers, are not generally overwhelming in their islamophobia, and many actually have very intelligent pieces.I just feel this article is quite sweeping and generic in its statements. It makes seem like that any other belief or expression in society that is different to its own is morally inferior.
Yeah well I'll take the 'tawdry' West any day over the obscenity that constitutes the Islamic world any day.
Sorry but was it not Cameron that used the word "swarms" to refer to refugees in Calais and escaping the Syrian conflict zone? Yes it was. He has been stoking racial hatred from the start. Where have you been? Have you just come back from a long long trip? And have you read the Mail headlines or the Telegraph? They have been spreading islamophobia ideology of their owners on a regular basis. And as for the policy of sending a few very expensive bombs to Syria as a means of resolving the refugee crisis and ISIL attacks, this displays a lazy token response where so much more action is required. Huge failures in leadership in this country on a regular basis and for many years, which is why we have the mess we have now and why it will only get worse in the tenure of the current encumbants.
The West may not be perfect, but I think you'll find it is relatively tolerant and thoughtful place.
This article offers a reminder, as if one were necessary, that the West, whatever its imperfections, would be considerably worse if we were ever foolish enough to permit the Chomskyite left to have political power. What a relief that such a belief system is subscribed to only by a relatively tiny number of eccentrics.
Finally. A commentator who has captured the situation precisely as it is. There is not a single politician in the current lineup who has actually stood on the edge of disaster as did the previous generations. Their parents and grandparents were integral parts of the fight for freedom and decency. The current lot have generally been born with silver spoons in their mouths and have been comfortably transported through life without having ever known true struggle. A bunch of wasters.
Hmm, gotta say it: I think we are currently standing " on the edge of disaster as did the previous generations. "
It may be interesting to revisit this conversation in 10 years time.
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Excellent article.
Such is why I first subscribed to the Guardian many decades ago.
More like this and less of the 'lifestyle' dross.We need a politician from an earlier generation, aware of the precariousness of peace and the horror of war, committed to upholding human rights, not just in the West, but also in the countries where we routinely arm authoritarian despots and bomb in the full knowledge that 'collateral damage' will result. We need someone committed to the idea of a social welfare state who will resist the siren calls of private finance and the euphemism of 'public service reform' which is taking health and education out of the hands of public accountability and into the hands of private capital.
That's why I voted for Corbyn. That's why so many lightweight political careerists don't like him.
Many refuse to see the despots in 10 and 11 Downing St because they hide behind their facade of "Britishness". They are some of the most dangerous people in our society right now. They have laid plans that are beginning to cause our entire society to unwind, and have already killed many thousands of our vulnerable, far in excess of any terrorist action, or even threat of action. They have replaced the random bomber killer with the non-random killers of poverty and despair.
Some say govts derived from proportionate systems don't get anything done - due to procrastination and dealing. But surely, with each calamitous decision and the two party consensus that lies behind each bad decision, this argument against procrastination/dealing doesn't hold up.
I detest Islam as an ideology, so I'd prefer not to have masses more of it's adherents in the UK, despite the fact that I hold no ill feeling to Muslims as individuals in the slightest.
The major global problem of the last generation has been political and theocratic Islam, not the west, not Russia, not China, not Communism.... but political and theocratic Islam.
As an aside, in the UK we are not in the slightest bit obliged to have loads more immigrants.
Create a suitable breeding ground and evil will flourish. Bombing innocent civilians does not weaken your enemy, it makes him stronger. Especially when the enemy exists purely as a theology.
We're not obliged to have loads more immigrants. However, our debt to GDP ratio has been rather high ever since those patriotic bankers destroyed our economy. Increasing the population would increase the GDP, which would lower the ratio.
"Bombing innocent civilians does not weaken your enemy, it makes him stronger"
Applying this logic to the Jihadi bombing of Western cities means we (the West) will be getting stronger, doesn't it?
Or is there a reason for this apparent asymmetry of application of the principle you've identified? Does it only apply to brown people perhaps?
Loved reading this article.
Now if only we could take a collective breath and stop for a few days and use the time to exercise some critical thinking skills sans any televised nonsense...
Naaaaah.
Contrary to this author, George W. Bush and Tony Blair did not create this problem. The Taliban were enslaving people and oppressing and murdering before Bush came on the scene. This cancer would have spread without any Western action. The problem could be looked at another way, namely that we did not enough to provide for security and economic development in these countries.
Gotcha. An organization with aims pretty much limited to within Afghanistan's borders .. the situation morphs into ISIS/ISIL/daesh and it's all just something that "would have spread" anyway.
I don't think the author suggests that Bush or Blair DID create "this problem". But that their attitudes and ideology are cut from the same cloth as those that did. A little reading on the matter makes all too apparent how greedy first-world meddling in the affairs of the (oil-sodden) Middle East effected a whole load of chaos and resentment that DID contribute to - or even help create - the hideous geopolitical situation we face today: interminable war, terrorism and mass migration.
George W. Bush and Tony Blair created this problem, have no doubt about that. The Taliban stopped Afghan farmers cultivating poppies, after the war against them tractors were built en masse in India and supplied to enrich heroin suppliers, with a corresponding drop in the price on the streets in Europe. We supplied plenty of economic development, we just didn't advertise the fact.
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This article and many of the posts indicate the extent of naivety in our society. As an individual who has worked in many emerging economies it takes only a short time to realize that the "Wests" actions are in general carried out with good intent: naive. Examples of this would be some foreign aid projects, where the general populace in the UK believe they are helping less fortunate countries and individuals therein. This often is true but it often helps to support brutal dictators who are only interested in their cut and the form this takes. The fact that the aid giver is supporting their citizens is completely lost on them - as they couldn't care less. Also some countries have huge problems with discrimination of minority groups whether ethnic or in religion. Look at some of the major beneficiaries of British foreign aid - Bangladesh and Pakistan. In those country's try to get a govt job if you are a Christian, Hindu etc. Also note how their places of worship are continually attacked and the police arrive to arrest the victims. Also the ruling elites in many country's would prefer to have the latest weapons, when they have large % of their population below the poverty line. Often migrants both legal and legal hate the West for their religious and liberal values yet take huge risks to live in the West. Know wonder so many are confused as they have freedoms in their new country's which they could only dream of in their original countries of citizenship. Have you noticed how many recruits to Daesh are former drug addicts, heavy consumers of alcohol, petty criminals and many with little knowledge of Islam. Interestingly the majority of migrants are very good citizens and don't find it necessary to write such pompous tripe in a broad brush manner as they are aware of the major problems in their former country's which dwarf those of the UK. They have the ability to see the balance of arguments, which is lacking in this article.
the "Wests" actions are in general carried out with good intent: naive.
The ratio for us fucking up situations leads me to believe it's often done with the full knowledge of adverse consequences. I've also lived in a lot of places, six countries in Europe, Asia and the ME, and most of the rest of your comment I agree with (with some trepidation, as I'm unaware of your underlying reasons you come to those conclusions).
I've seen anti-western people in several countries, including the UK (!), but they've always been a tiny minority just as those who engage in Jihad are a tiny minority of Muslims. There are also former drug addicts, heavy consumers of alcohol, petty criminals and many with little knowledge of Islam who don't pursue Jihad in all countries. I don't think attributing forms of self-abuse and addiction with the wanton destruction of an adversary is constructive.
Never read a Guardian article without reading the comments. There's always a very good chance the article is reduced to a pile of rubble by the comments. This one was, too. Business as usual, then...
Unsurprisingly, we witness, as Judt pointed out, “no external inputs, no new kinds of people, only the political class breeding itself”.
Spot on. There has been created, in effect, a New Monarchy, with only insiders as members. Politicians are fools to ignore the consequences of the abolition of any real democracy, but then again politicians ARE fools.
As another annus horribilis lurched to a close, the evidence of moral and intellectual sloth seemed unavoidable.
With respect, could this not have been said of any society dominated by a certain religion since it was founded and expanded by brute force since the 7th century? Why are its adherents fleeing to places not dominated (yet) by this religion? But why do they seek to replicate the conditions they flee from?
They flee from a shame culture yet try to continue such a culture in places which expect people to understand individual conscience and responsibility. We do not want a Middle-Eastern patriarchy, honour-killings, female genital-mutilation, murder of "The Other" (kuffirs), slave-trading and rape of those of a different belief.Just the usual Guardian line which equates opposition to barbaric Sharia Law and/or open borders mass immigration to racism. This is exactly the kind of shallow unnuanced thinking the author rails against.
Take a moment also, Pankaj Mishra, to sound the red alert of how democracy has been virtually obliterated in the EU by Merkel and the others who pull the wool over eyes and double speak Orwellian nightmare gibberish and untruths while the realities of failed governance and the moral and legal covenants between democratic governance and the EU citizen unravel into conflagrations.
Extreme political parties rise to prominence in Sweden and in Germany, the Pegida anthem is top of the charts, see The Local in Germany.
The European Union is tattered, its nonexistent warp and weft revealed and political leaders and media continue to spin more Orwellian untruths about the state of the broken shattered EU nation.
It is the 1920s and 1930s in Europe now, terrifying.
The realities each citizen knows versus the speil from the political and media platformvthat turns a deaf ear to the democratic protest, and abuses and silences them.
The citizenry mugged each day into silence and the extreme political spectrum the only avenue of casting their vote and protest. Scary given Europe's not so long ago history.
Note yet another sinister reality today, Erdogan, Turkey's leader, Merkel's choice called upon personal saviour to her collossal misgovernance,
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who is pushing for executive powers, cites Hitler's Germany as an example of an effective presidential system, in comments broadcast by Turkish media on Friday.
Hope you see and write of thid looming camouflaged spectrum of colours in Europe for what it is.
Only the rabbit caught int he headlights will fail to act to protect themselves and the future generations as they can.A nice cynical and realistically negative article.
The key here is the depressing quality of US presidents since say, Nixon. A major pity that Al Gore didn't win in 2000.
Gore? Win? No. Please, almost anything but that!
And I've even used an exclamation mark.
Phew. I think I need a drink.
Obama has resisted intense pressure to "act" in the Ukraine and in 2013 against Damascus. We may owe him more than is obvious?
Type in to your search bar "Project For The new American Century" it tells you all you need to know about why there is now a perpetual war.
The by product of which is the explosion in the share valuations of American defence contractors like Lockheed Martin.
People need to wake up we live in a world similar to that encountered by No.6 in cult 60's drama The Prisoner .
A world of propaganda and false narratives which benefit defence contractors, banksters and their paid puppets the politicians.Oh for God's sake. The Project for a New American Century was Bill Kristol, one other guy and a fax machine. You're comment is ridiculous.
"People need to wake up" - The cry of the tin-foil hat brigade down the centuries. I'll bet you nearly wrote 'sheeple'.
It's not so much about West/East and their systems and politicians, it's more about how awful so many human beings are.
As another annus horribilis lurched to a close, the evidence of moral and intellectual sloth seemed unavoidable. In the Christmas issue of the Spectator, Rod Liddle described Calais as “a jungle of largely Muslim asylum seekers aching to get into Britain – presumably to be hugged” by “the liberals”. In an interview in the same issue, the prime minister confessed that Liddle “does make me laugh”.
Why is that not a surprise? Both are ball bags of the lowest order. *****.
I get really sick of being advised to blame one side or the other in global affairs. Apparently you have to pick either the Western powers or the backward Eastern cultures for your bogeyman. Well, I don't - I blame everyone. I blame human beings for existing in large numbers and pursuing our interests across the world. We're all a plague on this earth, whether clean-shaven men in suits with Bibles or beardy men in robes with other strange books, it's humanity that's the problem, not this side or that. Yes, our politicians are incompetent idiots, but so are the cavemen who keep trying to shunt their societies back to the middle ages. Why should I favour one over the other? Put two drunk football teams in a small pub and watch what happens - are you going to single one side out for blame? How can you, really? They're only doing what you'd expect them to do. As soon as you pick one side for a good earbashing, you automatically start to suppress what the other side has done, and you really just contribute to the problem and all its complexities. The fact is, human primates are all arseholes, and we're all guilty of making the world the shithole it now is. I myself plan to keep out of it as much as I can until I cark it, and not have any children. We're all dead anyway - no matter what happens, this galaxy is on a collision course and the sun is going to blow up and incinerate us all, and it'll be just as if we were never here in the first place. That's not something to be regretted, I don't think. There'll finally be peace.
This is 'O' level Chomsky or Chomsky-lite, or whatever else you call a standard reproduction of Noam's oft repeated mantra but this formula will never really stack up so long as the other side of the equation totally underplayed (as it is, once again, here).
Yes, the excesses of neoliberalism have been dire but it is neither racist nor Islamophobic to fear the spread of radicalism across MENA, nor is it rational to blame external factors alone for the ills that have increasingly come to define this region.
It is the toxic combination of the two that has led to so much misery and suffering - we need to reign in aggressive neoliberals just as we do the apologist for religious violence.
Trump agrees with Pen, Farage and many groups in Northern and Eastern Europe. They broadly agree: stop NATO and EU expansion; stop intervening in the ME; ditch the Saudi -Israeli Alliance against the Shia regines; and deal with Putin and Assad to deal with Jihadis. It's where Left meets Right I guess.
A generation of failed politicians has trapped the west in a tawdry nightmare.
Pankaj,
Your article does not address the related opinions, wishes, regrets and frustrations of many ordinary English people. Politicians may indeed have made some errors of judgement but that will always be the case. They have been struggling to combat and understand violent and immoderate foes. The politicians' actions have often be perceived as causes of problems rather than the effect of external problems which they have sought to address.As a case in point, I am an Anglo-Saxon, native born Briton. For me the "nightmare" alluded to in your headline is one of unbridled immigration into England of totally alien cultures, clearly bringing with them claims of entitlement to all manner of things, material, political, religious, cultural. That sense of entitlement has been accompanied with an insensitivity to the valid concerns of those whose centuries-old "roots" are in England. Those concerns have been vilified as being xenophobic, racist and "politically incorrect". I totally reject those vilifications. They are oppressive, ill-founded, lacking in moderation and therefore unacceptable, certainly to me.
The gross unfairness of that oppression is the fuel for the growing resentment and tension within the body of English society. There is not a shared vision. It is as simple as that. For me, and I think for many others of my ilk, the root cause of our country's current crisis is to greatly reduce the level of immigration from countries whose cultural norms are totally at odds with mine.
Very well stated - I especially appreciate your insight as to the vilification one receives based on one's disagreement with pc policy.
Do you fear those "whose cultural norms are totally at odds" with you, or do you really fear how you might change if you got to know them? I find those "whose cultural norms are totally at odds" with mine are the political, media, military and financial elites.
People from different cultures - when you meet them, or seen 'from close up' - are more like you than you might care to imagine (concerned for good health, for the education and well-being of their children, preferring peaceful co-existence).
I'm sure your fear is well-founded. There's too much precarious work, personal debt, and social isolation, to give just three examples of our malaise. But the fear of migrants is largely a displacement of the problem. If you look more closely, and if you meet and listen to people who appear different to you, you may well find that their fears are just the same as yours.
And you have the chutzpah to talk of "vilification"? The "nightmare" you refer to has precious little to do with reality: it is pure vilification.For me the "nightmare" alluded to in your headline is one of unbridled immigration into England of totally alien cultures, clearly bringing with them claims of entitlement to all manner of things, material, political, religious, cultural. That sense of entitlement has been accompanied with an insensitivity to the valid concerns of those whose centuries-old "roots" are in England.
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There is an elephant in the room today in Europe that is recklessly ignored by this arms length theorizing from a preachy pulpit of wordy exposition.
It's interesting about Obama. No doubt he has had to fight a concerted attack from the internal rightwing who drive the media wagon. He resisted pressure to arm or support the Ukrainian Nationalists in the East. In August 2013 the Cruise Missiles were ready to go from the Armada of battleships. There was enormous pressure to push the button and finish off Assad. It's hard to accept the British Parliamentarian vote was decisive.
Thank you Pankaj Mishra for being one of the few with their eyes open on the ship of suckers - of course, you will be accused of heresy.
The writing is on the wall for neoliberal, free market fakenomics; few have seen it.
This is such a poorly argued article.
The chumminess seemed to confirm Amit Chaudhuri’s strong recent “impression”, acquired from BBC documentaries about India, that Britain comprises “male buddies”
The link to Chaudhuri's article doesn't support your interpretation (that said, those series were poor). Don't put words in other people's mouths.
A few days earlier, candidates in the Republican presidential primaries, aspiring leaders of the free world, had offered the following modest proposals...
The thing about elections is that anyone can stand and they can pitch any ideas. The doesn't mean those ideas resonate with the majority of the populace. Are you complaining about the democratic process? Are you complaining that dimwits aren't pre-screened? Anyone can aspire to be a 'leader of the free world', but they need to convince the electorate that they are fit for office.
Thus al-Qaida assumed its most vicious form where it had never existed, and then morphed into Daesh and me-too franchises in numerous countries.
Thus? ISIS didn't pop out of nowhere to revenge US bombing, it came about because disgruntled Sunnis were angry at losing their previously privileged positions in society, were angry that democratic elections resulted in a Shia government, were angry that the government of Malaki was following overly sectarian policies. This wasn't about a victim's revenge, but a deposed tyrant's desire to reassert control.
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"Even the BBC seems determined not to stray far from the Daily Mail’s editorial line."
The BBC's Editorial Guidelines can be found here.
And the Mail's here.
"The world's oldest democracies" have been involved in endless war and racial-religious hatred, probably from day one. And that anyone with even the slightest insight into European history would know immediately that this 'tawdry nightmare' is no new occurance. We've been at it forever and we're quite used to it.
So you can stick your idea of a 'crappy generation' where the sun don't shine.
Oh yes. Just one more thing.
“however long the battle may go on” the wielder of superior firepower “can never be the victor..."
Total crap. Of course they can. And in the wake of the 2003 Invasion, Islam did not have appear as merchants of extreme horror. Not at all. A Caliphate could have been established that really did unite all Muslims in peace, love and understanding ...That was their call, not ours.
And that speaks volumes.
Ah yes, the Left's continuing narrative that George Bush ruined the world. It's a rather shallow analysis isn't it?
" George Bush ruined the world. "
I blame Blair more. Bush was a half wit. Blair was educated in Scotland and should be feckin ashamed of himself the murderous slimebag.
Radical islam forced the west to react, surely it would be better to say "Bin Laden ruined the world"
Bush cheney et al drug the US into a war the ME needlessly and under false pretenses. About that there is debate. Tony Blair was just a fool and a weak leader who followed.
HW Bush and those of his ilk were and are closely tied to Saudi Arabia. SA - I won't pretend to understand al that but it seems an oppressive, violent, and generally vile regime.
At any rate, W broke and hes got to own it. To act like the he and hos henchman have no responsibility for hot mess in the ME is revisionist history and and tribalism at its worst.
Happy New Year.
When we (US/UK) invaded Iraq - Alistair Campbell asked "Why Iraq ? Why now ?"
I didn't like the sound of " Shock and Awe" over Baghdad - a city of 5 million people, most of whom had only been guilty of having a shitty life - so far.Phrases such as "collateral damage" and "friendly fire" were used frequently.
We will never know how many Iraqi's were killed - because we didn't count them.With the possible exception of getting rid of Saddam, I can't think of anything good that came out of that war, and very little that came after.
There was no Al-Qaeda in Iraq then, Daesh didn't even exist and the Taliban were trained and armed by the US to fight the Russians - what a fucking mess !
Personally, I believe that the invasion of Iraq was a catastrophic error by two of the worst leaders the US and UK have ever produced - Bush and Blair.
Nevertheless, you've packed a lot of ignorance into just 9 lines, but then again, this is the Guardian.
You seem to believe, with your mention of 5m in Baghdad, that 'shock and awe' is some sort of carpet-bombing tactic - it isn't. Relatively few civilians were killed in the conventional stages of the war. It was the resulting civil war where the vast majority of deaths occurred.
AQ may not have been in Iraq, but they were a group that posed a global threat.
The Taliban 'were not trained and armed by the US to fight Russians' - this is the sort of ignorant claptrap much beloved of lefties. Soviet troops were out of Afghanistan by early 1989. The Taliban emerged in 1994 when as few as about 50 fighters who had come out of the Deobandi, Saudi funded Madrassas on the Pakistan-Afghan border crossed into Afghanistan and began recruiting to combat the 'vice' of the warlords in the brutal civil war that had been raging, full-on, since 1992. They may well have recruited some ex Mujahideen from some of the Pashtun anti-Soviet fighting groups, but they were certainly not 'trained and armed by the US'.
"The Taliban 'were not trained and armed by the US to fight Russians' - this is the sort of ignorant claptrap much beloved of lefties. Soviet troops were out of Afghanistan by early 1989."
It's not claptrap - it's recent history - you really should know better.
Beginning in 1985, the CIA supplied mujahideen rebels with extensive satellite reconnaissance data of Soviet targets on the Afghan battlefield, plans for military operations based on the satellite intelligence, intercepts of Soviet communications, secret communications networks for the rebels, delayed timing devices for tons of C-4 plastic explosives for urban sabotage, and sophisticated guerrilla attacks, long-range sniper rifles, a targeting device for mortars that was linked to a U.S. Navy satellite, wire-guided anti-tank missiles, and other equipment.Between 1986 and 1989, the mujahideen were also provided with more than 1,000 state-of-the-art, shoulder-fired Stinger antiaircraft missiles.By 1987, the annual supply of arms had reached 65,000 tons, and a "ceaseless stream" of CIA and Pentagon officials were visiting Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) headquarters in Rawalpindi and helping to plan mujahideen operations:At any one time during the Afghan fighting season, as many as 11 ISI teams trained and supplied by the CIA accompanied mujahideen across the border to supervise attacks,
Read more at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3d1_1374168674#RWXxEUT7wFfplTCm.99I'm trying to be polite, here, but you're majorly missing the point. The figures you use are not too far off beam, but you need to read some serious academic literature rather than the link you've provided to understand the rather more subtle context, particularly regarding the relationship between the CIA and the ISI, and the fragmented nature of the Mujahideen. The basic story you keep repeating is very well known; Christ they even made a flawed film (Charlie Wilson's War) about it.
What you're not acknowledging (or don't understand - I don't know which) is that to conflate the Mujahideen with the Taliban is deeply ignorant. The Taliban emerged much later. At the margins there may have been some 'veterans' of the anti-Soviet jihad, but these would have been a minority. The Taliban recruited out of the refugee camps and madrassas on the Pakistan-Afghan border. The main Pashtun mujahideen group that received the bulk of ISI support was Hikmatyer's various militias that underpinned the Hezb-e-Islami. It is complicated, but Hikmatyer has normally been a rival of the Taliban, ceetainly not a forerunner.
Stop salivating at the thought that 'the CIA created the Taliban' and do a bit of research. I know it's not fashionable on the left but, go on, buck the trend.
_
The uncomfortable fact is that modern liberal democracies, for all their faults, have delivered the greatest good for the greatest number of citizens in history. All sorts of people, internally and externally, hate this, some to the extent that they wage terrorist war on us. We are of course going to resist them with all means at our disposal.
It is fear of a realistic alternative to their own structures of intimidation and hatred of The Other (women, gays, apostates, atheists, other religions) which drives Islamism.
The uncomfortable fact is that modern liberal democracies, for all their faults, have delivered the greatest good for the greatest number of citizens in history.
Those faults being entirely at the expense of people in developing countries who live with poverty and all of its horrors directly owing to the economic and militaristic aggression that keeps our liberal democracies in such fine fettle.Yeah.
Right.
And we delivered Israel. What good did that deliver for the Palestinians and the Middle East? Who gave Israel nuclear weapons?
no external inputs, no new kinds of people, only the political class breeding itself
So true. We have a self-perpetuating political class with little, if any, interest in the wider consequences of their policies, and intent solely on achieving their and their allies' aims.
Jeremy Corbyn is receiving the scorn you mention simply because he has beliefs. Whether or not one agrees with them, they should be debated and, if found to be untenable, held up to ridicule. Instead we see him demonised for believing in something.
Politics should be like a game of chess. Instead, it's now a game of liar's poker.Nothing new here, just another rehash of the West is fucking up the planet. This argument is so so old and contains nothing like an original thought. Cue up the theme song from MASH for the poor blighter.
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Not surprising as I strongly suspect that we are just following the natural decline of all empires once they're past their peak and go into decline. What once attracted the brightest and best to the forefront of government no longer exists and all that is left is administration which attracts those who lack ability but make passable middle managers.
Yup. A self-serving, self-replicating global elite that is not anchored to any particular place or culture, that is only comfortable within its privileged cocoon; that can cause mayhem but does not suffer any of the consequences.
Great text for the rear of a book jacket, by the way
Followed by 'Only one man, low born but with a clear & kind view on the world, can step up to save all of humanity. If they let him...'
I'd probably buy it
Where are the examples of successful Islamist policticians? Saddam, Assad (he does try to protect minorities - pity about the chemical weapons and barrel-bombing), Gadaffi, Erdogan?
And since Dwight D Eisenhower what leader in the West has spoken out against the destructive and self serving military industrial complex?
This should have been attached to my post showung who started the war in Syria (UK among others and for what objective: - to please Israel.
Mishra would never, rightly, allow such a crude caricature of "the East" to appear, but has this blanket description of the west taken from some US policies and an assortment of journalists of limited influence (he can't seriously imagine that Rod Liddle is influential, surely?) you would hardly guess that the French, and many other European governments did not support the war in Iraq. Very poor effort, but made worse by the air that he's somehow being brave saying this, speaking truth to power. In reality this costs him nothing, it's lazy not brave writing
The Muslim asylum seekers are flocking to the West - not to the Caliphate.
They are fleeing the vagaries of a religious belief system that has no place in this era.
Sure 'Democracy' is flawed but really consider the alternative - total Sharia compliant government.Quality!!
Now onwards!!! Proposal is the weapon we must name what we want to happen at a catalytic resolution!! No more time for critique we must learn the tools and start to make!Excellent article. Well argued and concise. But it continues doesn't it. The common denominator is the economic adventurism of the West, above all the US.
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“The old ways of mass movements, communities organised around an ideology, even religious or political ideas, trade unions and political parties to leverage public opinion into political influence” have disappeared.
Do the Corbynistas count as a mass movement?
Corbanystas, presumably derived from Sandanistas to be used as a slur. Very apt terminology for this article. Remember the CIA funded Contras? Same old same old.
Liberals have pressed the self destruct button, western Europe will cease to exist within a generation, only Eastern Europe and Russia can protect European civilization
only Eastern Europe and Russia can protect European civilization
Would that be homophobic, xenophobic, authoritarian Eastern Europe and Russia?
more of the same theoretical / academic rubbish that misses the point - when you rule / run the country, you have to make pragmatic decisions which you may not always like but on balance is the right thing to do for the majority of people. Part of the problem with the current Labour 'leadership' is that they never ran anything, a council, a government department, a piss up in a brewery and so take a stance that on paper works but in reality cannot be delivered.
Despite the tortuous prose, smug self-satisfaction, and the underlying facile nature of the core argument, this article has one huge redeeming feature: it can serve as a wonderful exemplar of the poverty of thought in the modern British left.
There's too much nonsense to go through it point by point, but two main themes emerge. The first seems to be a lament that western politics is dominated by (in the incredibly intellectually lazy term beloved of the left 'neoliberalism'). No-one on the left seems to ask why this might be the case. The reason is fairly obvious. The main western alternative in the last century or so, Socialism, has been a political ideology tested to destruction more than any other in history. It has demonstrably failed everywhere it has been tried. It has collapsed in all places and at all times it has been dominant, with overwhelmingly negative consequences for the weakest members of those benighted societies (the socialist elites themselves, of course, did rather well until the people removed and/or killed them).
The second major theme is the tired and vaguely embarrassing attempt to link opposition to aspects of Islamic thought with 'racism'. It really shouldn't need to be said, but neither 'Islam', nor 'Muslims' are a 'race'. Islam is a socially constructed series of beliefs. So is 'Liberalism'; 'Socialism'; Christianity; Buddhism etc. The fact that there is a religious element to some of these social constructions is, in this context, irrelevant. Many of these beliefs are directly hostile to the main principles of the enlightenment upon which the socio/political culture of the West rests.
So how does the left overwhelmingly treat this issue? If the Grauniad is anything to go by the typical left-wing 'thinker' will turn puce with foam-flecked rage if someone uses an 'insulting' term to describe a 'non-Cis' person, for example, perhaps 'no-platforming' them at a University, but go into rhetorical contortions of moral equivalence rather than criticise an ideology that leads directly to gays being thrown off roofs; rape victims being killed for 'adultery'; women being murdered to maintain the 'honour' of the family; etc etc etc.
The British 'left' seems to be going through a type of intellectual derangement that history produces fairly rarely. Germany in the 1930s springs to mind.
I don't know whether the writer is a beneficiary of Neo Liberalism or one of its useful idiots but he suffers badly from the affliction known as hubris. There is no antidote and history shows it is always fatal.
Blog threads would soon become very tedious if they were to descend into endless qualifications, caveats or semantics about broad political terms.
Neoliberal in this context, as you well know, is taken to mean the pursuit of a hawkish agenda in order to promote the financial and power interests of a narrow corporate and political class, primarily in the US.
It might mean sucking up to the Saudis or fermenting war in countries the west has no business attacking.
I agree however that the left faces insurmountable binds playing footsy with extreme Islamists, such as Corbyn referring to Hamas, or Hezbollah as 'friends'
"Neoliberal in this context, as you well know, is taken to mean the pursuit of a hawkish agenda in order to promote the financial and power interests of a narrow corporate and political class, primarily in the US."
I believe that the invasion of Iraq was a foreign policy disaster. I'll bow to no-one in my contempt for a number of the key players that surrounded Bush, and Bush himself. We were very unlucky that 9/11 happened on his watch. What's eye-rollingly facile is the left's extrapolation from one awful administration (aided and abetted by a messianic halfwit in Blair) to some sort of global neolib/neocon conspiracy. The rhetoric stops just short of David Icke type beliefs in lizard people.
There are obviously a number of major issues in foreign and domestic policy western countries have to navigate. For the life of me, though, I can't see any role for the 'left' given their idiocies. I keep seeing the image of Owen Jones, Corbyn, McDonnell, Milne, this writer and the rest in Father Jack masks shouting 'fek' and 'arse' as the sane grown-ups are talking.
On the other hand you could take a look at Dan Hannan's column in the Telegraph in which he argues (fairly convincingly) that 2015 was the best year for human kind so far.
You're missing the point, Colonel. Capitalism might work in PRACTICE creating historically unique benefits for huge swathes of mankind; but does it work in THEORY? There are a number of Guardianista careers in former Polytechnic Social Science departments hanging by a thread - have you no compassion?
In 1990, 43 per cent of people in developing countries lived in extreme poverty, defined as an income of $1 a day or less at 1990 prices. Today, that proportion has fallen to 21 per cent. Globally, the number of people living in extreme poverty – now $1.90 a day – will have fallen, this year, to less than 10 per cent. What has brought about this miracle? Not state aid or U.N. programmes, but free trade and specialisation. Decades of government-to-government grants barely dented poverty in Africa. But the spread of mobile telephones – whose companies are motivated unashamedly by profit – has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of squalor.
From the article...
http://www.conservativehome.com/thecolumnists/2015/12/daniel-hannan-2.htmlAll $1 a day comparisons are meaningless.... they don't reveal anything about what people can actually buy for their income. It's convenient for the defenders of status quo to point to such statistics but the fact is that in economical terms the world has become a drastically more unequal place with a small global minority monopolizing far more wealth than they can possibly consume while 100s of millions are deprived of even basic income opportunities due to the system allowing the rich to monopolize wealth. That system is known as unregulated capitalism and it is entirely based on ever increasing indebtedness of the masses.
Blah blah leftist trash. The last almost decade of economic decay, debt driven stimulus, immigration driven chaos in Europe, and fascism in the name of "correct thinking" has brought democracy to the brink of extinction. Nice job lefties.
Nice job lefties.
The neoliberals have been firmly in control for 2 decades and while they certainly have pursued debt driven stimulus and wage undermining immigration they are anything but left-wing......
Brave writing would have confronted the threats from largely discredited fanatics as well as the wisdom of Blair/Bush. However what would be the situation if nothing had been done by the west? Would Iraq and Syria still have imploded? If so would the current situation have been any different? When someone wants the whole world to embrace one religion then you have a threat to the whole human race. This has to be confronted.
Good article, though to some extent (only a little) lopsided-left. The incessant commercialisation of everything, the scorn poured on the irrational (ie., religion generally) simple because it does not conform to the rational (that's part of the point), the rubber stamping of 'science' to convince us of anything 'they' want us to believe, 30 children to a class, debt, gluttony & poverty to excess, mislabelled meat, the surveillance state, and apparently paedophiles everywhere - all, too, could fall within the remit of this article.
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Racism, a beast cornered if not tamed after much struggle, has lumbered back to civil society in the solemn guise of “reforming” Islam.
Bollocks. People aren't interested in "taming" Islam. They want all religion to stop thinking it can write the rules in a civilised society. Calling those who challenge Islam's stone age dogma racist is beyond simplistic.
Modern western society is quite clearly shunning organised religion. There's no racist agenda - despite it sounding good as part of this paper's narrative - just an eagerness to live in a world untainted by hand me down misogyny, homophobia and superstition.
Yes, it is both common and puzzling for left/liberal journalists to conflate racism with anti-sectarianism.
"People", "they" and "all"... if these were truly connected in the way you try in your opening sentence then there wouldn't be an 'other' for you to oppose.
In the Christmas issue of the Spectator, Rod Liddle described Calais as “a jungle of largely Muslim asylum seekers aching to get into Britain – presumably to be hugged” by “the liberals”. In an interview in the same issue, the prime minister confessed that Liddle “does make me laugh”. The chumminess seemed to confirm Amit Chaudhuri’s strong recent “impression”, acquired from BBC documentaries about India, that Britain comprises “male buddies”, whose “capacity for spontaneous insight isn’t that far away from that of Jeremy Clarkson”.
The words 'seemed' and 'impression' are doing a hell of a lot of work in that passage.
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Tony Judt's sane voice is a great loss in the struggle against mindless foreign military adventures. Thank goodness we still have people like Pankaj Mishra to counter the jingoism of our idiot politicians.
If you're counting on the work of Tony Judt or the scribblings of Pankaj Mishra to save the day for the left, I'd suggest the game is already up.
Yes indeed, the West is truly horrid. I simply don't understand why millions of people from the East are falling over themselves to get here.
Like everything else it's our fault.
Mishra is the sort that probably thinks it's was terrible imperialist interference when the sutti was banned under the Raj.
In fact sutti was very rarely practised but the british ban actually led to an increase as it came to be seen as an anti-colonial protest. The are also accounts of british officials encouraging sutti as a method of reducing population in certain areas. (Yes I'm completely making this up).
yes, why elect these people if they are so unlike the real world, beats me....YET another cry for help.
It was ever so.
Our history books glorify former generations and we nod our heads and bask in the reflected glory; but anyone with more than a nodding acquaintance with our 'heroes' and our 'elites', our classes and our masses, will see through such self-serving posturing.
The generation that gave us the current delusions of Islamophobia and The Clash of Civilizations [Harvard's 'intellectual' contribution to the New American Atavism, and the wellspring of Fox TV’s constant claims of a “War on Christmas”] is not different in kind from the one that gave us Kennan's Long Telegram and the barbaric, confrontational politics of the Cold War. America’s new war on Islam is the geo-political continuation of its long war on what it ignorantly called “communism”. Vietnam was the low point of that earlier adventure, and was a product of American imperial hubris. But that overweening pride did not emerge pristine and new from the cucible of WWII. It already had a long and distinguished pedigree, grounded in Elizabethan notions of cultural superiority, strengthened by the religious conviction that they were God's new Chosen People, and validated by late-Victorian ‘scientific’ conceptions of race. In our time these strands have congealed into “common-sense” notions of “western” superiority; notions that the 'elites' and the masses still do not question. In that colour-coded tradition, Black lives don’t matter; Brown lives don’t matter; Yellow lives don’t matter. Only Anglo-White Lives Matter. And Anglo-White Lives are ‘Christian’.
The story we tell ourselves about Ourselves is always thus: self-serving and deluded.
It therefore produces the anarchic chaos we claim to be combatting.
Same as it ever was.
............and yet the Cold War ended pretty much as Kennan predicted; there are civilizational tensions between the West and elements of Islam that exceed what Huntington explicitly predicted; and the rest of your points are a weird conflation of disparate historical rants and dubious interpretations that collectively are meaningless.
Their chums in politics and the media coax, with criminal irresponsibility, the public into deeper fear and insecurity – and into blaming their overall plight on various enemies (immigrants, budding terrorists in Calais’s jungle, an un-American alien in the White House, Muslims and darkies in general).
Mainstream politicians are not encouraging racism. Only yesterday Angela Merkel was extolling the social and financial benefits of immigration, and condemning racism. In France and Britain it is very much the same.There is no more point trying to challenge Mishra's narrative with facts than there is trying to take on a creationist with evidence in relation to evolution.
One Angela Merkel is certainly not going to balance out the LePens, Trump, Cruz, or far-right politicians peppering eastern and western Europe. Neither in this or previous post counters this.
Take this all a step back and you get to the prime mover. 9/11. Big mistakes were made in dealing with the fallout from that day. But that day started it all off, and that was - let's never forget - the objective.
Having just previously read another article
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/31/stories-of-2015-the-diplomats-who-stayed-up-all-night-to-save-the-day
they counterpoised quite nicely.
Obama was awarded the Nobel peace prize based on nothing and he was scoffed at. Looking at what he has done to raise world opinion of America and Americanism beyond the Bush>Reagan era, and looking at who might be lurking in the wings apparently high on power petrol fumes and cocaine, hindsight might point the way to this as a golden rather than a tawdry age.Genetic sociopaths/psychopaths...that is, people whose brains are physically different from normals, whose differences mean they lack the ability to feel emotions like empathy, guilt, regret and the like...comprise 4-6% of the human population.
Given that what replaces those emotions is a strong drive for power and control over others, it is more than highly likely that those in the highest ranks of politics and business have more than their fair share of those types., perhaps as high as 15-25%.
Given that sociopathic behavior is is contagious, the number of effective sociopaths in those groups is likely double that. If you doubt that sociopathic behavior is contagious, you've probably never worked for a sociopathic boss. If you have you've noticed that those who get promoted are those who emulate the boss's ways.
Society needs to screen for sociopaths and get them out of politics by prohibition. Yes, they are smart, usually, and charming, but we can ill afford them in positions of power because they are the ones who create the messes we are drowning in, and have no interest in correcting anything, they like things just fine as they are.
Excellent response. Would Murdoch be classified as a sociopath? His impact on world politics is frightening. Unfortunately there is no way to govern or limit his influence...other than his biological clock.
Well, Labour tried the approach of sucking up to him for about 15 years to maintain the endorsement of the Sun. Strangely enough, he didn't seem to be such a 'sociopath' then.
Murdoch has never been a nice person, nobody who's that power-hungry could be. Yet it's only the left that ever criticise him. Perhaps because the right wing people who comment here work for him directly or indirectly. Otherwise there is no reason why a Conservative wouldn't dislike Murdoch and what he stands for.
On an entirely different subject, does anybody know what Trump's business interests are and have been.
Seems unlikely that there is not a clash of interests between his political and business careers.
And I just want to say that trump means to fart. Maybe I've missed that zinger on the cartoon pages but why aren't more people sniggering?Trump is the most decadent expression of what ails the West. That ordinary people can be apparently driving his success is through the looking-glass.
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Do you honestly think that the West gives a shit about Muslims? If it wasn't for money (initially oil) the West would let them ( the Muslims) knock 7 bells out of each other and step back and watch, one faction being more Muslim than the other faction (Sunny, Shia). In fact that is happening. Apart from oil other monetary forces begin to apply like arms supply, money laundering (city of London, don't ask too many questions) etc.
Problem is ordinary people get caught up in all this crap and hence we have desperate people risking everything to escape, bringing deaths in the Med to the shithole outside Calais. Why are these Muslims trying to get into the Uk, why not go to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia etc? Rather than The UK? as these are Muslim countries.
Possibly the wrong sort of Muslim maybe? and they see the UK as a relatively safe haven. Nothing wrong with that but have they learned? No is the answer, they still want power, certainly over their women (their being a somewhat critical word) and demand them to dress fully covered wearing Black and in many cases with only their eyes visible, a completely alien concept for people of the host nation whilst the men wear Blue denim and western clothes.
In the meantime and if the author is correct that it is all the fault of the west, atrocities are committed against ordinary people, London 7/7 and Paris this year to and what purpose, to alienate the ordinary citizen who in the main has deep sympathy with their plight.
These atrocities will have no bearing on what will happen regarding stupid bombing in the Middle East and ordinary people will continue to be displaced and get desperate.Couldn't agree more. I didn't always find Tony Judt's politics simpatico, but with age came wisdom. He correctly identified a cosseted, narcissistic generation blighted by cultural, political and historical amnesia.
Pankaj:
While I'm OK with the analysis, I was taught that the person identifying a problem also needs to make some suggestions about a solution. So what do you suggest...
Mary
Thank you for this. I do despair that the rest of us (those not in the white male chumocracy) are too fatigued by our strangled lives to do little more than reach for the remote and the takeaway (take out) meal resting on our bellies.
How do we move beyond the story line that life has to be shit and unequal, the rich are rich because they're smart, the boot of repression should be welcomed, and that escapism is the best the rest of us can do? What can we learn from past political movements, or is this time and these places so differ from what's come before that the old tools and envigorations don't apply?Please try to wake up, Pankaj Mishra. If we the voters are convinced by cynical writers and diverse opportunists and trouble-makers that the people of the West are 'trapped in a tawdry nightmare' it will be the Donald Trumps and Marine Le Pens and Nigel Farages who benefit. And if it's not obvious why, I suggest starting by recognising that if the considerable efforts made during 2015 to help migrants and refugees are judged to be the stuff of tawdry nightmares, many people will think: if this is the thanks we get, why bother at all?
This doesn't make any sense. They are exactly the people who benefit from the current malaise. It is the intellectual ennui in the west that allows such shallow, venal and intellectually dishonest individuals to thrive.
The current malaise, at any rate if you exclude the complex mess that is the Euro, is by historical standards a relatively mild one. And, if there is "intellectual ennui" it is as much the product of 'politically correct' attitudes and policies (however well intended and in many cases ethically sound), as it is the result of the charge sheet making up Pankaj Mishra's polemic.
The news cycle looks like an enemy of the elite but in fact it works in their favour, moving swiftly through the fuck-ups yet never pausing for any refelction or seeking any opportunity to learn.
In the miasma of the news, they look like they are working hard to solve the challenges that fall freshly on the agenda, the solution-focus messaging covering them in opacity to obscure their ever-presence at the font of crises.
Yes, but they passionately believe that they passionately must solve the problem passionately, and passionately believe that the problem will be passionately resolved with passion and, erm, resolution... so they can passionately move onto the next problem that they also passionately believe must be met with passion and, erm, resolution... ahem, passionately.
Power, it seems, does a lot more than corrupt; it also coarsens and stultifies.
An excellent piece but I would say that it's actually inherited wealth and status which coarsens and stultifies... Whereas power corrupts.
Excellent article. If you tie in the true scourge of our times, the unchecked power of lobbying and the concomitant erosion of any difference between business and politics, you can see that money and the making of money has allied itself to quite extreme right wing ideology with only a figleaf of social liberalism to hide its shame. And this alliance, backed by ruthless and incessant propaganda that claims there is no other possible way of thinking, is very potent, even to those who aren't necessarily direct beneficiaries of its lack of scruples, often because the fragmentation of modern thought such as renewed natonalism is bolstered by it.
I imagine that this hawkish neoliberalism (that is after all what we are describing, neoliberalism being much more than a purely economic ideology) in moments of candid self-regard considers itself as upholding some flame of Western civilisation. Yet for anyone not caught up in such an ideology it bears all the hallmarks of terminal decline, a death-cult that becomes more desperate as it creates the conditions for its own destruction. In fact, perhaps this is the real reason it needs to establish others at whom it can lash out as a distraction and as an enemy against whom it can consolidate in the eyes of its adherents. That's the way to conceal or distract from extreme inequality in the age of globalisation and it's obvious why this would appeal to the Bushes as much as it would appeal to the Saudis; both the US and the Middle East have an interest in keeping their enemies in action as long as the vast wealth of either nation is concentrated into so few hands.
It's doubtful it can continue for good and inequality will be stretched to breaking point - the question is, who will be blamed for the breakdown? It will clearly be the poor, just as the global financial crash was spun as the fault of the poor. So if we had any sense we would start with changing the fundamentals of what is wrong. There used to be a separation of state and religion; now it's essential that we establish (and why not through a specific set of conditions laid out as guiding principles) the full separation of state and business. Well, we can dream at least.
"A cosseted, arrogant elite has presided over a swift decay in the very liberal values it claims, with bombs and guns, to be defending"
The syntax here is so poor, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. "It claims with guns and bombs to be defending"-come on.
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OK. You just can't get the workers nowadays.
But we all understand it and most of us would agree, the last couple of generations of politicians have been shit, in the same way the establishment always has been.
That's just the subheading written by staff and the syntax is fine, or at least "come on" is too vague to tell what you imagine the problem to be.
I agree with the general tenor of this article but there are too many over simplifications. The situation in the ME is complex than just a west problem and cannot be blamed the current generation of political leaders.
The tenor of the argument is not that recent western leaders have caused the situation but that their response to it has become oversimplified and intellectually and morally lazy. Might have been asking too much from Dubya to expect anything different, but what's Blair's excuse.
Rod Liddle may make David Cameron laugh, but in the Rod Liddle piece linked to, he writes:
The same antipathy to the usual Euro-liberal fatuities has been seen in Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Hungary and Poland. The voters have woken up: it is no good any longer simply to hold hands with one another and close our eyes.
and, regarding the newly popular political parties
The one thing they have in common is that they are fundamentally anti-Islamic. That is where the votes are coming from – people who have had enough of Islam.
Are these funny? Maybe these were not Mr. Liddle's best jokes.
Rather light topic to ease into 2016 with.
At least I know on day 1 some Guardian journalists will be blaming the racist West where everybody seems desperate to live and move to if not trying to emulate.
The word 'racism', like the word 'sustainability', has so little meaning it is best not to use it - or, rather, not to use it without giving a definition.
Excellent read, how on earth did this make it past the editors.
The West is indeed in a state of cultural collapse which came into being with the undeserved hubris following the collapse of communism and the first breaching of international law in Yugoslavia - a Rubicon once crossed cannot be uncrossed and the arrogance that it engendered has led to the current psychosis of humanitarian intervention being used as a fig leaf for neo-colonial adventures.
The US is undoubtedly morally bankrupt but can Mishra offer any alternatives. How about a world lead by Germany? The last few times Germany tried leading the world it ended badly for all. So what about France? They are good at criticizing but put them in charge and the world would be run for the benefit of France.
Looking outside of the "West" would you like Russia to impose order in the world? Is China a good alternative? Moving through the list of possible world leaders how about: India, Brazil, South Africa or Indonesia?
We have crappy western leadership but it beats even crappier non-western leadership.
I'm sorry but I'm unimpressed by this type of comparison of the political leaders of the present with the ones of times past. Which politicians of the past were so remarkable? Is the author referring perhaps to Asquith, Balfour, Lloyd George, etc , who sleep walked into an ignominious World War and presided over the senseless slaughter of millions of young men? Or is it Churchill & Co who, indeed won the war, but whose distorted partition of the Middle East is still causing all manner of geopolitical hell and sewed the seeds of today's global Jihadi terrorism.
Please forgive me for preferring the meek politicians of today that appear to be less charismatic, but are a lot more scrutinized than in times past.
An odd, muddled piece mainly about blaming someone, but without any fresh insight. It won’t do to pit Bush, Blair, and Rod Liddle against Tony Judt and that expert on geopolitics, James Baldwin!! Better read Seymour Hersh’s illuminating piece in the London Review of Books which shows how Obama’s obdurate support for Turkey (against all the advice) is permitting Erdogan to supply ISIS and massacre the Kurds, the only secular force for good in the region. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military
Racism, a beast cornered if not tamed after much struggle, has lumbered back to civil society in the solemn guise of “reforming” Islam
This article jumps around too much and fails to make a proper argument. Racism exists in all societies, both past and present. The way to dampen racism in the EU is to control and properly manage immigration. After years of austerity people in Europe face an uncertain future -apart from elite groups that is; the current migrant situation is playing into the hands of the extreme right.
To control immigration is inherently racist. As for your argument that doing so would reduce racism then look no further than Australia where immigration is tightly controlled but where racism is rife.
Can any Guardian writer write about anything in a serious way without someone saying that the solution is to control immigration?
Can any Guardian writer write about anything in a serious way without someone saying that the solution is to control immigration?
Not when the answer is to control immigration. I'm not a big fan of free for alls.
Rotten stomach turning governance by the political leaders at home too. Merkel rules the European Union as her front parlour wherein she appoints who sits, she singlehandedly conflagrates the European Union, and ne'er a mutter of restraint as she has comfortably clubbed them all into too cushy a somnolence. And Turkey's Erdogan her saviour who she singlehandedly promises the heart of the EU to, and ne'er a whisper of restraint.
'A generation of failed politicians'
I don't think for one minute any of them will regard themselves a failure given the personal lifestyles they have subsequently enjoyed.
Well, it does cause them a moment or two of perturbation during those moments when they can't travel to a certain destination they had wanted on their itinerary because they might be arrested for war crimes.
I feel let down by the blanket condemnation as “racist” calls to reform Islam. In fact, I feel that the “left” has abandoned the fight against the group demonisation of Muslims. Swamped by trolls, this paper painstakingly crafts articles so that their focus avoids questions such as the purported Islamification of the UK, or the bigotry and intolerance in some Muslim communities. This denies a platform for group hatred, which is good, but it also gives racists free reign to shape that debate.
There is a basic confusion on the left over Islam. Offer a platform to vilify the Tories and thousands of commentors wade in with Bullingdon, pig-fucking, blah, blah, blah. Talk about Islam and the comments are swamped by “haters” while the left flees the field. Where is their will to fight, expose, argue, defend? Is it because they’re not sure where they stand? The subject is not going away.
It depends who or what you consider to be 'the left'. The left in the UK is of course diminished, as is - for very different reasons - the left in Muslim countries. The latter have always opposed the religious far-right; some of the former take a principled position, but too many do interpret the religious far-right that is Islamism as anti-colonial - an essentially racist position that identifies what they used to call clerical fascism with Muslims in general.
While a lot of UK left activity consists of talking, taking positions, selling papers etc and calling it 'fighting', the west is powerful and solidarity is consequently appreciated by the Muslim left.
Give up your fantasies about converting Muslims to [insert your own belief system here] at the point of a drone. That's not going to happen. The more you bomb, the more you radicalize.
What are you talking about?
Its not about converting Muslims, its about telling Islamists in this country and abroad that making people live according to your rules by force us wrong. No amounts of rapes, beheadings and taxes on non-Muslims will change this.Muslims are welcome in this country. Islamists, less so and Islamofascists are not welcome, nor any other type of fascism
The Neoliberal age has been a huge con. There was nothing Liberal about it for one thing. It was about letting corporations and multi-millionaires steal all the best parts of the State at bargain basement rates. It was about drastically minimizing the tax contributions of the corporations who benefit from the schools, ports, roads and health care the state provides and pay nothing for. It was about increasing inequality by offshoring jobs. It was about turning schools and universities into glorified vocational schools. It was about putting a price on everything but carbon. It was about greed at heart, but it wore 1000 different faces, none of them authentic. This is the ugly age of Thatcher, Blair, Reagan, Bill Clinton and all the servants of upper class privilege.
And don't forget all the money generated by the military-industrial complex. Lots and lots of money. Whole states in the U.S. are dependent on the military and its contractors for their livelihoods, and those not coincidentally tend to be the most hysterical and aggressive supporters of right-wing politics and military aggression. And the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq happened under the administration of a sadistic idiot president and a vice president with connections to the military contractor that made the most money from those invasions.
Well stated and unerringly accurate. Twentieth century governments in the west have been almost unfailingly incompetent and now we live with a world of constant terrorism. Just what every genuine fascist wants to achieve. The only solution is to throw out the major political parties, with their corrupted political discourses that favour the small elites, in every western country. Europe is taking the lead. Let's hope Australia follows soon.
Have to agree with the broad sweep of the article.
As I refer to them: "The idiot grandchildren"
"Racism, a beast cornered if not tamed after much struggle, has lumbered back to civil society in the solemn guise of “reforming” Islam. "
This conflation of criticism of Islam with racism is repeated once more. You are trying to stop a reasonable debate.
Please tell me what is wrong with being concerned by some aspects of Islam.
Please tell me why I should not be alarmed by the appalling attack on liberal, Enlightenment values seen from a significant minority of UK Muslims over Rushdie.
Or by recent polls of UK muslim opinion on such issues as female equality, homosexual rights, punishments for atheists, apostates and cartoonists.
Okay, I'll tell you what's wrong. Not being able to distinguish between expressing concern at some aspects of Islam and treating Muslims as a bloc, with headlines like "The Muslim community must rein in its extremists". I was brought up in a Protestant family in Belfast and I can assure you that I was never part of a single community with the UVF and the UDA. I had no influence with them as they trailed and slaughtered Catholics in the dark streets. That experience gives me the insight to say that British Muslims are not all part of the same community and treating them as if they were is simply creating more resentment, more alienation and more problems.
I respect your experience-based insight, but while the point you make is sound in theory, it is also inadequate to the circumstances. It’s a reflex position that fails to account for the reality we face. That reality includes at least 700 Muslims going to fight in Syria. What is wrong with asking the Muslim community to reign in its extremists? Parts of the Muslim community are openly hostile to democracy and UK values. There have been Islamist power grabs in Birmingham state schools. These are real things, requiring more than reflex, liberal auto-pilot responses.
An excellent article. Its interesting that artists like Baldwin are often far more perceptive on power politics than foreign policy 'experts'. I'd be interested to know where the Baldwin quotes come from - can anyone enlighten me?
Always remember the people directly responsible for gutting hard won liberties and destroying any connection we ever used to have to civilised behaviour are those that claim to defend them the loudest. From military to economic to environmental issues, the neo-liberal/conservative axis is a pox upon the globe. From Dick Cheney to Hilary Benn., people with a contempt for humanity.
Politicians do all seem to be cut from the same cloth these days.. Well coached on speaking but saying nothing and blinded by their own ego, personal ambition and background of privilege. It also coincides with the empowerment of unaccountable power, a toadying and compliant media, and the subordination of the sovereign state.
There is hope from the younger generation who appear to be much more politically aware and informed than previous generations.
If it is racist to call for reform in Islam, why are intelligent Muslims calling for the same thing? On 27 December the writer Haroon Moghul wrote a “Letter to a Young Muslim on the Future of Western Islam”.
It opens with: “We have failed you.”
He urges the next generation of Muslims to:
• Get actively involved in building narratives that compete with the dangerous ones.
• Make alliances, even with groups or organisations you may find disagreeable, to defeat far-right extremism.
• Enforce more diversity – ethnic, gender, sectarian – on the boards of Islamic institutions.
• Create early warning and outreach systems for young people to prevent violent extremism.
• Reject political Islam, the creation of a “statist, authoritarian Caliphate”, which he calls “the single greatest obstacle to Muslim unity”. Work instead for a “more democratic, pluralistic and tolerant West” – without watering down the religion.
He concludes: “Many of our thinkers have led us to a civilizational dead-end. Reform means executing a nimble U-turn in traffic.”
http://qz.com/579526/a-letter-to-a-young-muslim-on-the-future-of-western-islam/
What a stark contrast to this article's poorly argued blame narrative. The letter offers a way forward to integration with the West from the viewpoint of a practising Muslim.
Modern politics and political comment has indeed lurched into the realms of the extreme and ludicrous and egomania. Increasingly it appears people just can't control themselves and have either no sense of perspective nor pragmatism.
The courting of the extreme elements within their parties and tribes has become desperate and therefore dangerous. People only seem interested in not only voting for divisive and controversial figures like Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn but also aggressively attacking anyone who may disagree with their position. (JC is a good bloke but surely people can see he's too divisive a figure which is unfortunate).
The already high and growing levels of mistrust and fragmentation between different peoples has reached boiling point. Personally I think it's a lot to do with inequality which has reached epic proportions but most people can only put blame on other reasons for their desperation or hate or mistrust.
I wonder what Tony Blair thinks of his "New World Order" now, not that I seriously think that he worries about, or has any trace of remorse/guilt about his decisions which have plunged the Middle East into death and chaos.
A clinically precise exposition of the moral vacuum resulting from western foreign policy having forsaken ethics for profit.
But I did have to chuckle at the image of "Britain comprised of “male buddies”, whose “capacity for spontaneous insight isn’t that far away from that of Jeremy Clarkson."
PARANOIA ..........." A mental disease with delusions of persecution ... etc ..Paranoid .."
PHEW ! .... That's a relief ....... I thought there was something wrong with my eyes .....
This is an article of such quality that I'm almost surprised to find it in TG, which all too often recently, has been offering little of intellectual significance. I support almost everything it claims - my only reservation is that until we have thinkers equally capable of self scrutiny within the international and British Muslim communities, we cannot begin the dialogue we so urgently need.
It's true that the West's invasions have created the conditions in which millions of people turn to their only perceived source of strength, unification under the banner of Islam. We appear to have developed a political system which satisfies the few, and gives no options to the many. That must change. But i don't believe that Muslims are puppets: they are self-defined, as capable of agency and purpose as any other human beings. Those inspired by an ideology which preaches misogyny, control, supremacy, endless warfare until the world is subject to Allah, will not be placated by the West's repentance.
TG could help by giving more space to people within the Muslim world who are trying to modernise the interpretation of the foundational texts of Islam, in order to make coexistence, genuine diversity, and an authentic human solidarity possible. We need to do this for one another, and for our staggering planet.
Social mobility ceased - the middle/upper classes assumed the moral high ground in a geo-political landscape that was both stagnant and delusional. Generally the middle class and other self styled 'elites' are not fit to govern. They have a sense of Liberal Totalitarianism which roughly boils down to 'we know best, you're going to get it, whether you like it or not'. But, if working class people either through abject horror or apathy abandoned government to the middle/upper classes, then politically the moribund state of affairs rests solely on the working class rejection of power. We forfeited our numerical superiority to a minority of crooks, swindlers, chancers and spongers. Os-Cam happen to be the two most powerful men in this nation, at this time. They are both historically from families of wealth and went to the same school; well that's okay then! When an odious troll like Mr Bercow can acquire so much wealth, power and attention, you really must look at your democracy and shake your head in shame. Until the electorate cease being feeble minded, the middle/upper classes will naturally persist in acquiring the essential posts of government; it's a gravy train with only a first class compartment; you need not apply.
I actually spent some time reading this and trying to find a meaning in it. You use words as shadows of the reality you purport to describe, and then start treating those words as if they are the subject matter of discussion themselves. For all I know I might agree with much of what you say, but as I can't find a clear reference to specific events, I don't know. It's all a bit like a dream sequence out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer; you have to interpret it from your seat on the cool kids' table in order to understand it. Well, the cool kids have always left me standing. So the interpretation a coupld of posts below this:
A clinically precise exposition of the moral vacuum resulting from western foreign policy having forsaken ethics for profit.
leaves me bewildered. How did you get there?
Most of the decisions that mainstream politicians make have no rational basis, their opinions are not the product of reason. In most cases the values that decide political tendency are formed before the age of 7 in response to the individuals own childhood circumstance.
The pontifications of many politicians are just rationalisations of infantile ill informed decisions.
So true that the establishment is totally out of its mind. Maybe the time have come for us inocent people to start changing the establishment and rid ourselves of theses crook's from this day forward.
I agree with 1Cedar's first sentence.
If The Guardian wants to claim to be any different from the rest of the mass media (including now the Beeb), it needs far more interventions along the line of Mr. Mishra's.
It can be satisfying even pleasurable to blame the world's problems on the West. There may however be a price to pay for such narrowness of vision: the issues and problems that most need addressing, above all in the middle-east and across Africa, can more readily remain unaddressed. And those in the West who most enjoy denigrating their societies can too easily shield themselves from objective discussion.
And what the heck do you know about the 'problems that must need addressing' in the Middle East and Africa?
I am surprised that anyone can question that there are problems that need addressing in the middle-east and across Africa.
Yet I'd be more concerned about my homeland issues.
I don't see why the UK or the USA should bother to do sth for those 3rd world issues... Ah! Got it. Resources plundering, of course.
Brilliant exposition of what the self-serving elites of the West has saw fit to concoct for the world. And, in fact, one could say, in the fullness of time, when the historians of the future come around to write how the western's leadership of the global world came to an end, they will be stuck on the manner that ending came about.
In other words, like Edward Gibbon in his magisterial opus of the decline of the fall of the Roman Empire, those future historians, will no doubt preserve a especial chapter for those "crappy leaders" (like Blair and Bush) as late Tony Judt, called them.
Of course, the account-takers of the future (like Gibbon of his day) will be occupied not as to how the west have fallen. But rather how was it that a leadership of the West on a global basis, which was handed to those leaders in a silver-platter at the end of Cold War by their predecessors, was squandered in so short of a time? And in particularly in so cheap of a reward for it.
After all, for others (such as China) to wrestle a leadership from one's hands by long struggle is one thing, which would be admirable, if that were to have happened. But to let go of such a totemic pole position (as the West have had) on the basis on endless own-goals, as well as on the pack of silly political agenda, which cost one so much with nothing to show for it, is really definition of what Napoleon had it mind, when he said that: “Victory belongs only to the most persevering.”
And since the conduct of the western leadership ever since of the end of the Cold War, and in particularly, since the beginning of the "War-On-Terror", seems to indicate the almost casual way in which the western leadership was so ready to unburdened itself of that leadership role their predecessors had won for them, then it's acutely appropriate to say that Napoleon was spot on in his assessment of what "victory" (of a civilization kind) requires.
And in particularly, the hollowness of the current leadership of the West as well as how such a political victory was always going to be a fleeting in their hands, regardless of how much treasury of toil and blood, was spend on it when it was obtained in the first time.
This article pertains to be critiquing 'power' but some of those criticised above, such as the Labour voting Rod Liddle, are very much on the outside pissing in.
What it does manage to do is place a full list of liberal bete noire's together, and try to link them. Rupert Murdoch - CHECK, George W Bush - CHECK, Donald Trump - CHECK. This is then flavoured with a general whinge about the most important issue to the author's generation - racism - and served as a substantial contribution to debate. It is not.
I rather sympathise with Judt's original position. But it requires an addendum - that this is a 'pretty crappy generation of liberals'.
Agree, we need true liberals who will criticise both the leaders of the G8 but also criticise the leaders of islamofascism with equal venom. Nothing wrong with criticizing bush and Blair but its possible to do this whilst criticising those who allowed evil to flourish in this country and abroad
I guess the 3,000 innocents slaughtered on 9/11 can count themselves lucky they didn't come across the "most vicious form" of al qaeda, eh?Thus al-Qaida assumed its most vicious form where it had never existed
Al-Qaida never existed in Iraq, before the US/UK invasion in 2003. That didn't stop GW Bush trying to blame Iraq for 9/11, while knowing full well, that nearly all the 9/11 attackers were Sunni Saudis. None were from Iraq.
AQ in Iraq evolved into Daesh/IS. They have killed far more people, mostly Shia Muslims and other religious minorities, than those killed on 9/11.
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epiglottis .... epigram. "epigone" is not in my dictionary. However, I found it online, "A second-rate imitator or follower, especially of an artist or a philosopher." Have to remember that.
Mr Mishra makes some good points, and outside the ranks of the Blairs, the Camerons, and the bankster caste, he will find many people who agree with him. However, I think it's only a partial diagnosis; it would be good if he could flesh this out more specifically, and maybe even point us toward a treatment program.
Unfortunately, I keep thinking of our own current monster, El Trumpo. He is, very deservedly, castigated for suggesting that Muslims be turned away from our shores, but the rest of his sentence went something like, "Until our leaders figure out what's going on."
In other words, we don't have a complete diagnosis of the problem. Our leaders, and particularly my own leader, President Obama, don't seem to know, "what's going on." Maybe Robert Fisk knows, maybe Patrick Cockburn, maybe our own Professor Joshua Landis, maybe retired General Michael Flynn, but I certainly don't.
I'd really like it if Mr Mishra would tell us, maybe a little more calmly, just "what's going on," if he knows. If he has any ideas about what to do about it, even better.
"He is, very deservedly, castigated for suggesting that Muslims be turned away from our shores, but the rest of his sentence went something like, "Until our leaders figure out what's going on.""
Yes, let's persecute an entire race due to the actions of a tiny and unrepresentative minority and pretend that this does not exemplify racism.
The sheer depravity of this comment should shock the world.
But we need to know "what's going on" because we are too fucking stupid to see the obvious.
Let's go hang some muzzies
YEEEHAAAA!
No mention of the failed politicians responsible for the shameful decline of the Ottoman Empire and since.
I don't think he's writing about this issue in this piece is he? He's talking about 'the West'.
The former member countries of the Ottoman Empire had their own politicians in 1924.
....and they had from 1683 to get their act together after losing their war on the rest of the world.
What tiring drivel. Again this is whataboutism. And of course the failures of the Ottoman Empire quickly became the failures of the West (who did redraw quite a lot of borders post fall in M.E.) and are now the failures of those countries (and sometimes the West and Russia). What is your point exactly in relation to the above article, I am curious? And how is the fall of the Ottoman Empire shameful?
it isnt just failed politicians its failed 'values' also. The politicians are now just the masks put in front of the corporations, money men who manipulate the markets and the MIC all of whom run society. Until the people stop looking at these people for salvation and see them for the puppets they are we will not be able to move forward.
..and meanwhile, in the real world, truly repressive governments and tyrants are committing genocide, raping and selling women as sex slaves, murdering homosexuals and viciously restricting free speech with barely a whisper of disapproval from Western liberals and leftists.
History will damn them for their wilfull blindness, as all decent people currently do.
Damn it your right! We should put on our uniforms, get together with our allies and go bomb the shit out of them till they're leaders are deposed and democracy reigns freely and all those pesky problems disappear!
Alternatively, we could stop buying their oil.
But, considering ISIL's splashy murders of Western aid workers and journalists, they deserve some bombing.
"A generation of failed politicians has trapped the west in a tawdry nightmare"
I've been saying exactly that for years. Those ones have totally failed. Bunch of big time muppets.
Lets be a little hypothetical. Suddenly, over night, there are no politicians. Gradually, people investigate the halls of Westminster to see and read into where government operates. Do we then evolve a new means of governing? do we have new elections, as before, and vote for people who impress us and promise to do better for us all?
It is at this point that 21st century human nature decides if the privilege once enjoyed by previous members of parliament, is taken on, the money and power seduction that is so hard to resist.
The question is, would the New inductees rise above the lure of all that glistens, and roll up their sleeves to take on all that the country needs and formulate policies that give, rather than take, or would they succumb to all the greed and less savoury side of human nature that epitomises present politicians. This is a question that has to be asked of any new political party, including those that are trying to find themselves amid petty squabbling. Others, however, are the ones we can only hope will do a nocturnal disappearing act.
History is not going to be kind to the politicians leading the USA during this time period - or Britain, or NATO or Russia or China..
Damned entertaining to watch. Wish I were younger so I could be around another 50 years to see how it plays out.
dr o
When will people realize that two wrongs don't make a right and "good vs evil" mentality is always a recipe for disaster regardless of who adopts it?
Mishra's analysis is timely and penetrating. Not only has the political economy of the last 40 years hollowed out Western countries creating huge inequalities in their societies, allowing elites to re-establish themselves after more than 40 years of being held in check. With this political economy has come a gleeful narcissism among the elite - that they are 'natural' leaders, that they are clever and witty and, well, just so relaxed about being very wealthy and powerful. It has produced a moral vacuum and the blindness that goes with it. Small wonder that Labour politicians who have been held in thrall by 'wealth creation', 'management', privatisation and all the rest of the paraphernalia of the elite to which they belong fail to understand Corbyn and what he stands for. Mishra's scorn for the 'Clarksonian' faux irony of our politicians and other members of the elite who benefit from the current political economy (they won't starve when it goes down the toilet) is justified. Tony Judt was so right to call them 'the crappy generation'.
Mishra's analysis is boorish and silly, lumping together the fortunes of Western citizens as if they played out the same. For instance, the US middle class hasn't had a pay rise since the 80s when you adjust for inflation, but in the UK, the average rise in income since 1986 has been 62% http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lmac/earnings-in-the-uk-over-the-past-25-years/2012/sty-pay-over-25-years.html. This is just a piece to satisfy that sort of guardianista who likes to blame their lack of success on 'elites'.
Yes and what about the massive systemic failure of the Muslim world ?
Corruption
Bigotry , against the wrong Muslims and non Muslims
Repression of women
anti LGBT
Anti Semitic
Economicalky backward
Socially dysfunctional
Educationally backward
Intellectually stagnant and backward
Violent
These problems are the product of these societies , made worse often by the West , Russia and China.
These societies produce Assads, Saudi Wahhabism, Saddams, Ghadaffis ,
Into these broken dysfunctional societies flooded Saudi money to fund hate mosques and madrrassahs
Look at the Saudisaation of Pakistan over 50 years .
So your tawdry list of negatives fully negates the comprehensive list of failings that our ruling elite has displayed constantly over the last 20 years? Ironically, you've manged to embody all the fear, insecurities and hatred talked about in this article in one brilliantly apt post.
Well said and utterly destructive and brainwashed. Destroy other history and cultures by stealth and weapons. Pray five times a day. Unless Muslims modernise as Christianity has done it will one day dominate many westernised regions and the feckless politicians so well described in this article will be responsible but never accountable as the Establishment protects its own.
We have been failed by all the so called leaders of society. Politicians have just jumped on the bandwagon as we have surrendered our families and communities
An extension of the quote from the Bush official (believed to be Karl Rove).
"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
He should be done for crimes against reality.
Western society progressively surrendered what values it had after the second world war not suddenly when the soviet block dissolved.
By the seventies an emerging generation was told you can have it all and they began to believe it. This mantra is what lets the political classes, the bankers and the rest of us make our decisions based solely on self or group interest lubricated liberally by book advances and bonuses. The morality of western society, the society that likes to call itself developed, is driven by only one religion: Its god is mammon.
I agree that the current Anglo-American elites are the weakest they've ever been and mindless bombing doesn't help but your solution(if you have any!) seems to be that millions of Muslims be allowed to come and live in Europe permanently no questions asked!.And that is supposed to fix the problem! If this is the alternative viewpoint then God help us!
Some random fanatic, it turns out, can make their reality far more quickly, coercing the world’s oldest democracies into endless war, racial-religious hatred and paranoia.
When the west frees its own people from corporate interference in democracy, the freedom to trade, generic fraud and massive multilayered corruption which result in effective bondage for a huge number of its civilian populations then it can talk about other oppressive regimes, but, until then, it would be better to demonstrate to the world that higher standards are required by all people and not just those we choose to claim are worse than we are. We also choose to consider nations that have made and continue to make large numbers of people disappear or die on a daily basis (apparently in the name of certain freedoms) our friends just because they fuel our economies. We have a very strange, very fickle, and I would suggest, largely immoral, morality.
It isn't fifty years ago that the US and the UK had rampant racism, homophobia, and a belief 'God was on our side'. We should have grown up a piece, but Vietnam, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Iraq and the Middle East generally says we have not. Peace comes through reconciliation of differences not marketing them in the guise of defending ourselves against people we have helped to create.
It's always good to be lectured on our political shortcomings by a citizen of India, a land where racismand corruption are notably absent.
I don't blame Mr Mishra - I might be tempted myself if the Times of India, say, were to pay me to pontificate about Indian shortcomings.
But no Indian paper would do such a foolish thing. Only in the Guardian ...
"It's always good to be lectured."
You could have stopped there.
The Guardian takes lessons because it may be better than Indian papers. That's why I'm spending my time here and not elsewere.
At root, the problem is the People, that we are the proble, im my opinion of course. From one point of view, our ruling classes have become like those fat pigs for slaughter which no longer grow after reaching a certain weight, but continue to eat free ride; in other words they do not produce anything. What then does the breeder? He leads them to slaughter and puts into other new and the cycle begins again.
The point is that the breeder, that all of us in a healthy democracy, he dozed off. He took the sleep of reason and discernment.
Also it is always interesting to note what topics we are permitted to comment on. For all its evil acts, all western media is afraid of offending the fascist regime in KSA
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Is it racist to object to Saudi Arabia flooding UK mosques with cash and malignant propaganda?
Or to feel disturbed by Islamist marches in Luton calling for Sharia law in the UK and for police to burn in hell?
UK liberals have lost their way, conceding ground to the far right because they are confused and lilly-livered.
So easy to bitch about America when our own society is heading for a generation of intractable conflict.
No. It's racist to then extrapolate these small minorities of extremists or totalitarian royal families and use it as a justification to judge all Muslim's.
I agree with you, but it’s a stock response and an inadequate one. Why can’t the left challenge the bigotry, misogyny, backwardness and intolerance in Muslim communities? Why does the left leave it to the far right?
The above mentioned quote “When we act, we create our own reality" comes from Karl Rove and is only part of it. The entire quote makes for laughable and chilling reading: "We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
To paraphrase: When we act stupidly, we create a big mess///We're history's fools and you, all of you will be left to sort out that mess.
Could it be that Mr Mishra is really disappointed that his once respected West has still not utterly crushed all it's enemies and allows even rather nasty Governments to continue. Really this looks more like his invitation for the West to reach out to confront all opponents and finish the job.
I wonder if he could mean Ch... No! and Certainly not Pa......
Interesting piece in the Spectator about Kids Company, with particular reference to the absence of the most basic investigation and oversight of what was really going on, how the tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money given to them was distributed.
Really, any organisation of any sort which suddenly requires several million pounds to prevent immediate collapse, is beyond saving anyway, and any PM who doesn't know that, or sees fit to disregard it is unfit for office.
One interesting footnote to the Spectator piece is how Batwoman changed in appearance over the years; her flamboyant "pantomime dame" appearance was a fairly late innovation, earlier images show a much more conservative, businesslike appearance.
Relevance to the neo nazi destruction of society as we know it?
Failure of ruling politicians to act in the interests of the general population instead squandering resources (money) in ways clearly bordering on cronyism if not outright corruption.
Ruthlessness rises, until visible to many, and then gets the attention that's required to deal with it.
Trump is a side show, one among many in my country, that gets all the attention and allows us to not notice or discuss what our military weapons customers (Saudi Arabia, Israel, and on and on) are doing. That Trump and Hilary can avoid questions about U.S. America's hegemony demonstrates the validity of this op-ed. Not that any reporter would consider it appropriate to ask such a question.
I struggle to see a differentiate between the 'evil' Sharia Law of the 'so called' Islamic State and the Sharia Law of Saudi Arabia. For years I have blindly overlooked what I now see as medieval fascism at state level in the name of remaining 'liberal'.
Sharia codifies the rights of slaves, and the right of the master to kill the slave without sanction, and which slaves they can and can't rape.
I struggle to see a differentiate between the 'evil' Sharia Law of the 'so called' Islamic State and the Sharia Law of Saudi Arabia
That's because there is no difference...... the only variation is how openly and rigorously it is practiced. For example is it common practice to label slaves as "contract workers" although there is no meaningful difference.
The modern generation of politicians has not failed. In fact the opposite is true. Never before in history has a political system been so successful.
Power is now permanently consolidated in two main parties who are the public face of rule by the rich and for the rich.
The reason that this system has been so successful is that the people are in the grip of liberal democracy where true human rights that have formed the bedrock of just societies for centuries - the right to recognise God as the maker and sole owner of human life, the right to the truth, the right to life, the right to a a natural family, and the right to the fruits of our labour - are being crushed with a tenacity that could only be accomplished in a society where all the all political, cultural, educational, social and religious organisations are strictly controlled.
Interesting piece which exposes the real reasons behind the clusterfuck that is the Middle East today. Blair was irrelevant, a mere puppet - the monsters are the neo nazis who are still at the heart of power in the US
We've had over 40 years of incompetent political leadership in the West. If that coincides with the rise of neo-liberalism and neo-conservatives, then you understanding where I'm coming from.
Interesting piece which exposes the real reasons behind the clusterfuck that is the Middle East today
How neat and tidy it is to blame democratically elected western politicians and at the same time ignore the sectarian, tribal, racist forces within the region.
The article doesn't expose the "real reasons" behind the mess in the Middle East. It highlights some (recent) catastrophic errors made by western leaders (as usual Russia gets a free pass) that have contributed to the mess. That's not the complete picture.
First, read your own UK archives about Western collusion with radical Islam to attack secular Arab nations and then lecture people about the problems of the Middle East. Fed up with the ignorance of you people.
Maybe slightly off topic, but not much:
Czech daily newspaper publishes a "funny joke" about Merkel being doused with petrol and set alight - See more at: http://blisty.cz/art/80487.html
You are right, a generation of politicians have failed utterly to act in the best interests of their own people. History will see them as a class of Vortigerns, utterly to blame for the disasters that follow.
thumbs up for actually knowing who Vortigern was and the result of loss of border control and demilitarisation do to a civilisation.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%9314), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(1978%E2%80%93present) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War
Daily death toll 1979-1989 (under Soviet occupation) 280-479
Daily death toll 1989-2001 (Afghan civil war) ~ 87
Daily death toll 2001-present 18-21
Also google 'afghan gdp per capita' and look at the near 6 fold increase since 2001. Some opponents are just ignorant but some knowingly spread falsehoods. Which are you Pankaj Mishra?
And Saudi Arabia - the Afghani Landlords and their pet Clerics turning the population against the government that was redistributing the land. "Oh, they're against God. It's just a coincidence they're also dividing up the farms equitably."
Barack Obama exasperatedly insisted that American leadership “is not just a matter of us bombing somebody”. He is worldly enough to realise that, as his hero James Baldwin wrote during the futile American bombing of Indochina: “Force does not work the way its advocates seem to think it does.” Instead of impressing its victim, it reveals to him “the weakness, even the panic of his adversary and this revelation invests the victim with patience”.
Does Obama really seem that worldly ,to Guardian readers,going by his foreign affairs record? I fear Mishra might be giving him too much insight.
After all ,Ukraine,Libya,Syria ,the rise of ISIS and military overthrow of the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt,all happened under Obama's watch- not the simpleton Bush's.
A hopelessly one-sided appraisal. The most regressive force in our generation is a supremacist religious ideology which projects its own failings on to others and sanctions its barabrity by appeal to divine authority.
Western civilizations, including Russia and parts of Asia, are at war with Islam because of western human rights statutes and constitutions. Many current anti-immigration citizens want only people who cherish all of our rights with heart and mind. Heart and mind both! Brits, Yanks, Russians etc do not want to have to battle with newcomers at home, either physically or politically. It is difficult enough already to keep ourselves mindful of the freedoms we presently possess without having to deal with imported contrary and restrictive cultures, whether overt or hidden, on our own hard-won soil.
Why not try getting out of other people's countries first? Let's start with North America and Australia?
Any western country which follows America's disastrous foreign policies needs to reassess its leadership (if this is what you are hinting at). But Yanks and Aussies, living in other countries and trying to change things there, well, yes, get out and let the local governments and rules self-destruct without foreign help.
Some random fanatic, it turns out, can make their reality far more quickly, coercing the world’s oldest democracies into endless war, racial-religious hatred and paranoia.
Absolutely spot on. I was saddened and shocked by the plethora of misguided excuses given to justify the bombing of Syria when a certain key fanatic had hatched a plan in Molenbeek to murder innocent French citizens. Siding with an emotionally injured friend is something you do in the playground; not on the world stage. If that is the central rationale of our politicians then God indeed will need to help us.
Ha! First of all, most people identify "Muslims" as Arabs, ergo "Arab terrorist" has been replaced by "Muslim/Islamist terrorist" in the language of the racists who aren't keen to proclaim their racism publicly.
So sorry, but you're still a racist.
Yes. The most plausible issue is that it could be covertly sponsored and exploited by our very governments. And it wouldn't be the first time, of course. But maybe you should live outside the UK/USA to know that.
Aren't people stupid, in their entirety. Should ever we grow up into an articulate race and fulfill our destiny, it will be by accident rather than design.
I agree entirely. I've watched my country turn into an oligarchy of rich, clueless nabobs with little idea of anything beyond their limited imaginations and desires.
Do tell, as you completed your elitist, inbred education did any of the teachers learn you that the plural of anecdote is NOT data? You quote one historian, who fits your own prejudice, and then pound to fit/paint to match cherry-picked newsbits to fill out a tiresome, deadline-looms article of moaning that could just as well have been about any other era of history.
<plonk>
well said, this is such a useless, skewed and biased article. to use the author's own phrase, it is crap. utter crap, actually.
The column may just be musings on Judt's ideas, but that doesn't make it anecdotal (unless Judt's work is also anecdotal).
Kind of irrelevently, but I thought that anecdata was not used as a plural of anecdote, but rather to suggest the idea of pseudo-scientific outcomes based on a collection of anecdotes?
Yes our leaders in the west (all elected) are mediocre but when you look at what the rest of the world has to offer I know which I prefer.
"Mediocre" is not the adequate definition. "Global scale criminals" would be more suitable not to lessen them.
Of course it's far more comfortable to be more or less aware accomplices rather than being against them. Quite a bunch of dangerous people they are ...
Whatever the faults of the west it seems to be getting an endorsement from migrants heading here.
Perhaps there's more to the west than we are lead to believe and perhaps we need to be a little more confident in precisely what it is the west has to offer the world.
Whatever the faults of the west it seems to be getting an endorsement from migrants heading here.
Welcome to what happens when you destroy their homes, they move to yours.
Oh dear. Meantime the leadership of the rest of the world has an unparalleled record of excellence, so good in fact that, their people all fleeing.
Racism, a beast cornered if not tamed after much struggle, has lumbered back to civil society in the solemn guise of “reforming” Islam.
WTF does reforming Islam have to do with The Tea Party & Republicans?
Muslim countries and their leaders are NEVER to blame. Their beliefs are immune from criticism and their countries would be brimming with roses and peace and equality for all if it wasn't for the WEST.
The West's biggest mistake was ever getting involved with the ME. Our involvement with ME theocrats and dictators infected our simple mined leaders with dreams of power and invincibility that were pure arrogant fantasy. Thus, the mindless wars and serious defeats.
9/11 should have been met with a serious boycott of the Saudis and strict restrictions on all assets and travel of all of the ME potentates. Saudi Arabia should have been the focus of any physical punishment. I accept the West's mistakes but the core of the sectarian violence in the ME is the fault of the leaders and people who live there and we do them no favors when we refuse to make that clear.
"The West's biggest mistake was ever getting involved with the ME".
The ME owns roughly the 50 % of oil reserves on this planet (and this data could be biased)... None of the regimes and states of the region, with the exception of Iran perhaps, can or could withstand the overwhelming military might of any western country...
The West got involved with the ME since oil has been exploited. It still fuels our whole economic system. How old are you? 11?
You (the whole 15) must be out of your mind ..."Saudi Arabia should have been the focus of any physical punishment."
1. Saudi Arabia is the US best business partner in the region since, at least, the 30s (oil market control and some bln per year in weaponry and assistance for instance). This explains how this brutal regime ruled by a beduin and reckless clan has survived until now. Didn't you notice the recurring queue of western politician waiting to kiss king Salman's arse and a new deal signed? Where do you live for C****'s sake? Disneyland?
2. "physical punishment". You must be somewhat childish and sadomasochist ...Unbelievable magnitude of naivety. I'm shocked
many younger people exalted into positions of influence by the accident of their birth in rich and powerful countries – members of ruling classes who assumed that history ended in 1989 with the fall of communism and their unchallenged supremacy.
Yes, having never proved their mettle in life, there is something horribly feckless and paltry about the half-wit toffs who have come to govern us.
Yet another piece of Guardian apology for Muslim atrocities. The Western world is far from perfect but to stand equidistant between us and 'Daesh'..and not knowing who is the worst is frankly, hilarious.
Totally agree !
Shame on The Guardian for not recognising a thinly disguised article, tantamount to terrorist propaganda.
A saddening and sober but absolutely spot on article. The only thing missing is any realistic thoughts on how the devil to change the course we are on. Manipulation of public opinion has never been easier especially when appealing to primal fears and what options are voters given?
Perhaps time for a whole lot of countries to have their own quiet revolt against the bloated and failed system and at the very least start with a fresh batch of people..if not voted in then at least pushed in by random ballot as if for jury duty. They could hardly do worse.
There's some truth in this of course, but it's worth remembering that analysts were citing Islamic extremism as being one of the threats to be faced in the 21st century years before Bush, Blair and their ilk.
And Islamic terrorism existed long, long before al-Qaida.
Yes we have been meddling in the middle east for centuries, and yes they have sometimes been fighting back.
"analysts" being paid by some indipendent intitution of course.
Islamic extremism makes use of non islamic waepons though... How peculiar.
Agreed, but it still doesn't follow that all the problems in the middle east are the fault of "the west".
We may have been meddling for a long time (although "not meddling" is not necessarily taking the moral high ground -in many case it's abdicating our moral responsibilities), but animosity between Arab and Jew, for example, has been going on a whole lot longer.
I would say that it is more than a generation of failed politicians. The few govern for the few and always have, which takes us back a few thousand years.
It was about a year or so into my service with the U.S. Navy (early 1980s) when I suddenly realized what a lot of bullshit our captain was speaking over the 1MC as our ship deployed from the 32nd Street Naval Station in San Diego each spring: "Let's get out there and kill some commies!" Yeah, great. Let's do that.
Fuck you, Captain. Fuck you, Mr President. You are all tools in someone's game. Every serviceman and woman is just such a tool. Anyone who has served who has not worked this out is simply not paying attention.
ISIS is bad? Go soak your head and read some history.
You are disillusioned? (And I say this with respect, sailor.) I was a Marine grunt in VN and now a 100% disabled vet. Does anyone actually think Bush's Iran invasion had any purpose, other than forcefully settling a feud between his dad & Saddam? While he was doing all that BS, the actual bad guys were thousands of miles away and avoided the military action of US. Dickheads and generals made the decisions (often the same guys). They didn't get it in VN (or Korea) so why to think these idiots get it now??
Thank you for your reply bill1369. You are the one who deserves respect, my friend, and I am genuinely sorry that you didn't come home the same as when you left. I was pretty angry when I wrote this comment and did not intend to denigrate anyone's service - especially those who, like yourself, have paid a high price. It is a hell of a thing to ask a young man or woman to put themselves in harm's way. This is not something to be squandered or used lightly. And that's just what happens, isn't it? George Dubya Bush should be in jail instead of fishing for bass on his private lake.
Take care and my thoughts and prayers are with you, soldier.
Wow a lot of people reading this article are demonstrating its truth by not getting it - and in a knee-jerk reaction accusing the writer of apologism for islamic fundamentalism or pointing out that the west' is the destination of choice for those fleeing wars. They are missing the point of the article, which is the death of the politics as something which involved large chunks of the people in various forms of civic engagement. This is an article about neo-liberalism and one of its many manifestations is that it kills liberal values by extending state power outward and internally on its own population.
I think people get the article. What they're saying is that for all its faults the west is still a better place to live than anywhere else, and evidencing migrants wanting to come here. The irony, of course, is that it's the very freedoms the west does offer those who would pull it down without knowing what to put in its place, or - worse - knowing exactly what theologicalsolution the west needs, will ultimately lead to its downfall.
"its downfall" has been doomed by our societies' greediness appraisal and consequent decadence (we don't have children anymore... is it the migrants fault?). This is the point of the article. The author can only be responsible for what he writes and not for what people understands ... You are overestimating most of them I fear.
The Roman Empire didn't fall because of the barbarians. It had already imploded ..."its downfall" has been doomed by our societies' greediness appraisal and consequent decadence
That there IS the cancer, what you've said there. It isn't untrue but it's not balanced against the liberties and advances the West has achieved. It's not balanced against the oppression that exists in, let's say, muslim countries with their theological oppression. In comparison we live free and prosperous lives and there is a degree of order in our society. Not perfect by any means but far better than the existing alternatives.Most Muslims want to enjoy the same freedom and hence they flee to the West. What the we do is support the very regimes that oppress them because of our own misguided self interest. So more and more want to flee.... and Muslim society never gets any closer to achieving the goal that so many of the population yearn for.
Hello Cybomania.
I think I get your concerns.
I'll try to put it this way to be understood for the discussion's sake:1. The discussion here is not wheter our political system is better or not. I agree with you "we live free and prosperous lives and there is a degree of order in our society" (at least we enjoyed it in the last 60 years). Moreover, I've direct experiences of what does living elsewhere means. And I assure you these experiences do broaden your perspectives.
2. I think the point here is the arrogance displayed by our governments. I don't believe the "democracy seeds" theory. Sorry. Facts and logic suggest there's sth else going on. History is a good teacher. Nothing really changes. Does our "being better" belief allows our governments to lead questionable interventions all over the planet causing thousands of deaths? How peculiar the oil reserves rich ME is particularly frequented...
3. Problem is not to choose alternatives (which we don't have). Problem is if we really are what's best around we should make some more effort to demonstrate it and persuade instead of insult. When you loose your credibility you're done. All is gone, the bed and the good too. I think the author addressed this argument. Kind of he is feeling betrayed by the promises west culture boasted. As long as we live in our fortunate countries it's quite obvious we don't need to discuss why we don't leave for Iran or a banana republic elsewhere.
4. "muslim countries with their theological oppression"... I obviously agree with you. But:
a. it's the secular states in the ME that have been hit by allies initiatives.
b. what about the relationship with SA (the ugliest and more violent regime in the region)? This argument alone undermines western propaganda credibility. Furthermore, as long as the so called Al qaidas, IS, and franchise affiliates seem to work in the same direction western policy in the region does (destabilize and seize control of territories and resources) the whole "west haters terrorists" framework is put to test. Doesn't it? I guess you know what the terms "covert operations" and "false flags attacks" mean. One might think this so called terror organization's crimes have been heavily exploited so far. Then you indulge thinking where do the money comes from to pay and organize those criminals and the rest is only logic and good sense (and history's well known and unveiled examples). I can't prove anything of course (that could be risky indeed) but facts and data, once you take them out from the MSM one sided ramblings (both CNN and Pravda ...), instill undeniable doubts to the frankness of our elites. And I'm beein extremely politically correct here.6. Lastly, the arrogance being shown by western policies has renewed a freshly and fearsome cold war season. Are you sure it's all the "stinking russians" (as I happened to read in some comments) guilt? I think a more biased opinion should admit everyone has the right to demand his share as long as you respect each other. Problems arise when you think you can do whatever suits you despite other's ambitions and beliefs.
No islam and terrorists discussion here I guess. I do fear much more a violent and large scale escalation we won't be able to escape than some fundamentalist demented (The IRA did worse, didn't it?).
It's us, the common people who will pay the price. Our elites will be safely informed and protected.
Forgive me. My english is terrible and far too elemental. I know. But I'm trying my best.
We were always going to arrive here sooner or later given the individualist values of the Enlightenment that underpin our culture. The same Enlightenment that held that mankind (sic) had a right to exploit and use the planet and which properly kick started exploitative capitalism. It's taken a very long time but power that was historically concentrated in the hands of of autocratic monarchs and nobility has passed through a temporary period of apparent democratisation followed by a relentless drift back to the concentration of power in the hands of a tiny elite. The advent of neo liberal, free market economics in the 1970s merely accelerated this process.
A very good article imo, particularly so that the possibility of WW111 is bubbling nicely to the surface, not helped by the execution of a pro democracy peaceful cleric in Saudia today. We await Iran's response. Huge pressure on oil prices to plummet I suspect and Saudia can implode. These people are our main allies in the region in case anyone should forget and our blind and useless leaders have no fall back position. The leader of our 'democracy' is a PR rep for The City, has no visible talent for world affairs nor intellect to adapt to a swiftly developing situation. He also hasn't grasped the full consequences of a warming planet and that the refugee crisis is only the tip of the iceberg. 2016 looks to be a grim year.
The problem will not begin to be solved before Blair and Bush are in The Hague answering for war crimes.
The West's leaders are responding to growing public anxiety about Islam. So far without much success, admittedly, but your solution seems to be for Anglo-Saxons to take the blame for everything under the sun and embrace the very cultures people are trying to escape from.
Where will you all emigrate to when that has run its course?
The West's leaders are responding to growing public anxiety about Islam.
Most of the mass killings in the US are committed by white, often young, men. Why aren't Americans afraid of young white men?
When you say"West's leaders are responding to growing public anxiety about Islam" it seems out of context.
I suppose you don't believe the west and it's leaders past and present have no responsibility or relationship with the unrest in the middle east that is at the heart of the 'anxiety'?
Our endless interventions and tampering that are still on-going and our colonial past and all it's legacies. Our governments still covert resources and access to resources and create or nurture narratives that give them scope to gain said assets by any means. We have endless war and 'we' are, on the whole the aggressors not the victims. War does not lead to peace I don't know if it ever did. A white Anglo Saxon Man.
“Force does not work the way its advocates seem to think it does.” Instead of impressing its victim, it reveals to him “the weakness, even the panic of his adversary and this revelation invests the victim with patience”.
A temendously wise and important sentiment. I wish the media - who flopped about like bunny ears in fawning over HIlary Benn's gormless advocation of bombimg - had the same number of braincells among them as James Baldwin.
And the US may elect Hillary, the biggest warmonger on the planet.
The media is all agog that Al Quada has Trump in a commercial. Big deal. Hillary's overt and covert wars in Libya and Syria are what actually gave rise to ISIS by destabilizing nations. Hillary is a Much worse warmonger than Trump, who is willing to deal with Russia and Syria. If you want WWIII elect Hillary. Just look at her record in the Senate and as Secretary of State. She never saw a war she didn't like.
So what's worse? A guy who talks funny or a woman who leads to the death of hundreds of thousands, and millions of refugees, and who gloated "we came, we saw, he died" about the public torture of Gaddafi - who - for his faults, ran a civilized nation with a high standard of living, high education, great social services, and freedom for women. Now it's an impoverished Islamist hellhole, roamed by murdering terrorist thugs who impose horrible Sharia law. Not to mention that most of ISIS weapons came from looted Libya. And she even bragged Libya was a "success."
Hillary even fomented trouble in Ukraine and pushed Cold War II for no good reason at all. If you don't want a nuclear war with Russia, don't vote Hillary. That doesn't mean I'm a Republican or big Trump supporter. It's just that he's willing to deal instead of being war-mad, and I HATE war. Hillary goes on about women's rights. Women and children are the first victims in war.
Amen, brother, and I may have to write in a 3rd party candidate next November if I wish to vote.
Convincing. I'm bound to think Trump is working for the Clinton clan ...
Yet I don't see any decent choice at all nowadays ...May the Force be with You.
This has absolutely NOTHING to do with Islam...for those commenting here and spewing their Islamophobia. Our so-called 'leaders' have been corrupt for the longest time and those with the power to vote them out of office, have been too busy finding reasons why not go and vote or too busy seeing to it that the status quo remains unchanged. We have become a most degenerate society...busy blaming others.
If this rambling article is about anything at all it seems to be primarily about Western foreign policy with respect to Muslim countries.
And what about the final paragraph:
That is surely a reference to Islamic terrorism.Some random fanatic, it turns out, can make their reality far more quickly, coercing the world’s oldest democracies into endless war, racial-religious hatred and paranoia.
I think that if we can steer the ship safely into an EU superstate. Then instil some sort of morally agreeable values about the family and fidelity, in a sensible fashion without overtones of religion etc. We would have a structure that everyone in the EU could get behind on an equal basis. It's impossible to go forward as we are without massive friction. Any race or creed could get behind an EU flag with *equal* pride; and I think the big draw to religion is chastity of women and the family unit. If we could encourage this behaviour in some-way without religion I think we could move beyond social upheavals and look towards fixing other issues.
Well that's certainly one way of looking at it. Good luck with the woman's chastity thing, I can see a few of the writers in the Guardian might have a problem with that though.
You're right. The connotations of chastity are bit off. So, i'll edit it to say the chastity of *men* & women, in my hypothetical.
It seems that Panakajs criteria for failed politicians is merely anyone from the West. !?
Whereas the Middle East, eg. Saudia Arabia, etc dont really have politicians do they, I think they prefer beheading people without trial instead !Saudia Arabia is a US outpost. Isn't it?
It's the most fearsome and cruel regime in the middle east. Isn't it?
Who is responsible for supporting that mediaval wahabist ruling clan?
What a mess of a composition. I must have slept through quite a lot, but I was not aware we were living in a dominated by radical right-wing activists who were implementing White Christian nationalism everywhere they could touch. Perhaps because that is no where near the actual situation.
Western elites have certainly failed their societies, but they have failed them from the left, not from the right. Far from dictating policies of racial or cultural or religious purity, they have embraced the multiculturalism that has resulted in "no-go zones" in Britain for the domestic police, while 1 out of every 5 Americans no longer speaks English at home. The west has lost its faith, and as a result is witnessing widespread family breakdown from the US (where more than 40% of children are born out of wedlock) to Poland and Germany, where birth rates are so low as to put those countries on the path to extinction. The doors have been thrown open to waves of foreigners with little regard to whether the share - or even admire - Western values, which undeniably contributed to the widespread availability of young people to be radicalized in the name of Islamic terror.
Abroad, what we've witnessed lately looks far more like timidity than over-assertiveness. The problem with the Iraq invasion was not that we went in, but that we did far too little to establish a civil and governmental structure in the aftermath. When we defeated Germany and Japan in WWII, it was more than half a decade before we allowed local elections to be held. In Iraq it was less than 18 months. Our interventions in Libya were laughably deficient - amounting to little more than air strikes and a few dozen advisers to teach rebels how to dig in during a battle, but not how to organize a government after they won. Our efforts in Syria have been just a fraction our efforts in Libya.
The liberal looks at the West today, correctly identifies that it is in Chaos, but assumes the solution must be greater "tolerance", greater multiculturalism, greater internationalism, and a reduced willingness to preserve and promote the values that Western societies were founded on. What that liberal fails to realize is that this attitude is exactly why the West is in so much trouble in the first place.
that has resulted in "no-go zones" in Britain for the domestic police
Why are you lying? There are no such things as no-go zones in Britain for the police. Total Fox-inspired drivel.
1 out of every 5 Americans no longer speaks English at home
Excellent - bi-lingualism is something we should all aspire to, at the very least.
Do I take it that
are those you espouse? History has some examples of that mindset, if you'd care to look.policies of racial, cultural or religious purity
"left", "right"? LOL ... Say "money" instead ...
"we did far too little". Roughly 1000000 deaths. Far too little for your governments capabilities ...
"In Iraq it was less than 18 months...". Facts show it's not a real sovereign state anymore, is it? Kind of troubled nowadays, isn't it?
"Our interventions in Libya were laughably deficient". Deficient... you mean foolish, don't you? Should Daesh's mercenaries go ashore in Sicily I'd send you in to provide a less deficient action ...
"laughably deficient" in italian sounds like "ridicolmente deficienti" (literally laughably feeble minded). Sadly no one laughed in my country when your government started bombing."the values that Western societies were founded on" are constantly betrayed, lies after lies. That's what the article pointed out. Face it.
A good article, but the writer appears to ignore the Saudomisation of Islam as a destabalising factor in the relationship between westerners and their Muslim minorities.
"Saudomisation of Islam" ?
KSA is the home of Islam, according to Islamic writings. What you refer to as "Saudomisation" is little more than Salafist insistence that Islamic doctrine and practice remain orthodox and be preserved from logical and semantic acrobatics and creative re-interpretation — in efforts to align the original dogma with the modern world... and hence undermining the prophet's credibility and the doctrine's authenticity as the divine word of god which is immutable by humans.
The Saudis are religious conservatives (fundamentalists) that fortune has given enough cash to sponsor continued Islamic conservatism internationally. The dominant Islamic school in UK is Deobandi, also conservative... but to a large extent constrained by UK law.
What fundamentalist school do the Taliban belong to? (not Wahhabi)
The impact of computer networks and smartphones on societies without bookshops was always going to be extremely disruptive and, to be sure, western leaders have not handled the resulting chaos very well. But, in blaming all these upheavals on 'crappy' westerners, Mishraj is just engaging in the racism he professes to despise.
Good point. One might have anticipated that the internet would spread an openess to new ideas, rather than simply reinforcing hatred. But you are correct that it is a superficial medium. Witness the idiots just jailed in London for asking on Twitter which targets to blow up. I suspect, sadly, you are also right about Mishraj. Can he critique other societies than the evil West? Would he even be publishing and writing if not for the evil West?
Who was the feminist who finally paused to observe that women would actually still be living in caves if not for those evil men?
Racism, a beast cornered if not tamed after much struggle, has lumbered back to civil society in the solemn guise of “reforming” Islam
Well, that's a very biased reading of things which, because it taints an entire line of thought, because it seeks to gag an entire half of the debate, had better be backed up with some facts. And the mentally idle train of thought "Muslims are, on general browner than non-Muslims therefore, in the absence of me being able to think up aany other distinguishing factor, is therefore the thing that people who don't like Islam are obsessed about". See, that's not an argument, it's a prejudice, an unexplored, lazy and anti-liberal gateway to reinstating blasphemy laws.
What this sloppy thinking also achieves is that it delegitimises ALL criticism of Islam. It thus aims to put Islam, in ALL its precepts, all its details, beyond the reach of rational, reasoned, socially-minded, considerate debate.
I would like at least ONE article in which the Graun explains clearly, and with solid argumentation, just why this illiberal, intolerant line is the one it is pressing.
While many of us may agree with many of the setiments in the article, that particular quote
Racism, a beast cornered if not tamed after much struggle, has lumbered back to civil society in the solemn guise of “reforming” Islamdid catch my attention. It is very much easier to criticise the perceived attitudes of a society with different values than one's own. I was impressed when I read an article referencing a few Muslims who have critiqued aspects of their own society
e.g. this from In the Arabic newspaper Al-Mada, by Iraqi writer Adnan Hussein, speaking after the barbarism in Paris. He said We must overhaul the educational system. .. from elementary school through university, our young people are taught - sometimes with a stick - that Islam is not only great, but also better than other religions, and that those who are not like us belong in hell.
What has emerged, he wrote, is a "savage faith that stirs up decapitation, spills blood, instigates plunder and rape.One suspects it takes much greater courage for a Muslim to criticise certain aspects of their societies than for a Westerner to criticise his or her own society.
Nonsense. Even racists know that Muslims are often Arab or Black African or Indian and racists don't think those are the same "race".Racists see Muslims as a race
Beyond "not invade Iraq" what should western countries have done or not done that would have made things significantly better?
Throughout its history Islam has oscillated between moderation and extremism. It has its own internal dynamics, we in the west don't directly cause this.
But violent Islamic extremism has not usually concerned us in the past, unless it threatened western-controlled colonial territories. This was bound to change in the globalised, connected world we now have.
There are few purely regional problems anymore. Complete avoidance of intervention is impossible, even inaction is a decision that can have fateful consequences. I don't know what the answers are but I'm pretty sure that simply blaming the West for everything is not helpful.
Beyond "not invade Iraq" what should western countries have done or not done that would have made things significantly better?
Perhaps it might have been a good idea not to support Saddam in the 80s, use the Mujahadeen to kick the Russian's out of Afghanistan. (the war on Iraq led to the creation of ISIS of course}.
Also not blown up Libya and not try to overthrow Assad. US allies, the Saudis, are sponsor Al-Qaeda terrorist groups, so it might be a good idea not to be allied with the Saudis and so on.We didn't in any significant sense "support" Saddam. He was more friendly with Russia. Hence all those Russian tanks and planes he had.
The Saudi regime has been fighting Al Qaeda longer then we have and has more Al Qaeda prisoners in its jails than were ever were in Guantanamo. One of Al Qaeda's explicit aims is to depose the current Saudi regime.
The US helped the Muiahadeen defeat the Soviets but maybe they would have succeeded without that help? Or maybe not and the USSR may have survived - that would be bad for us in different ways.
Al Qaeda were formed in response to the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia for the first Gulf War, a war that had widespread international support.
The US has attacked Assad with nothing but words so far. This itself may have been a mistake. Libya shows the perils of regime change, Syria shows the perils of inaction. It's hard to say which is worse.
There are always tradeoffs and tough decisions. It's easy to be wise after the event.
"A review of thousands of declassified government documents and interviews with former U.S. policymakers shows that U.S. provided intelligence and logistical support, which played a role in arming Iraq in its war with Iran. Under the Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, the U.S. authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous dual-use technology (items with both military and civilian applications), including chemicals which can be used in manufacturing of pesticides or chemical weapons and live viruses and bacteria, such as anthrax and bubonic plague used in medicine and the manufacture of vaccines or weaponized for use in biological weapons."
... etc.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq%E2%80%93United_States_relations)How old are you?
A whiff of End of the World perhaps, Why don't analyst refer to the Bible and the Apocalypse. Daesh does. I'm not condoning them, I'm just saying we are heading in the same direction. This won't end well. With news of the Saudi executions and Iran's predictable reaction, what do you expect?
Erdogan did not know who Hitler was. His aides found out and briefed Erdogan. He blamed the media for misrepresenting what he said!
Oh, that explains it ! If it came to a referendum as regards Turkey and the EU with respect to accession - I was going to vote NO. But now that you have explained it - I am going to vote YES.
"American imperium or of the French and British chumocrats, who lost their empires long ago..." This article, which draws attention to (some of) the consequences of victim-hood (in some cases), might be less tedious and make better sense if it were not so transparently laced with superfluous, backward looking, contempt for imperialism.
What of India's Dalit (or untouchables) and lower castes? Yet after many centuries of the most patent victimisation under every form of government they still don't appear to be on the verge of morphing into suicidal, genocidal, religious nut job jihadists?
Yes Bush was a dunderhead and Blair at once manipulative and a poodle — and both were the product of privilege and elitism. That makes them little different to most leaders in the past. Other than perhaps being less concerned with personal rectitude and being more corrupted by power in comparison to just a few exceptional 19th and 20th century leaders here and there.
Oh those bad old western democracies, always itching to create more victims for little reason, (preferably non-white, obviously). Ruining a world with such a glowing previous record of enlightenment, peace, justice and stability before western civilisation spoiled it all, with it's science, medicine, industrial revolution, modern farming, secular justice and universal human rights ideals.
"Racism [...] has lumbered back to civil society in the solemn guise of “reforming” Islam." Er... Whereas all the evidence points to Islam being an internally harmonious, modern, harmless non-political, non-sectarian, religious ideology that is a boon to universal human rights across the world and requires no reform? ...Guff!
Such a pity to miss the point and purpose of the article. Mishra is obviously comparing today's West with the recent past during which the West was a beacon to the developing world. Even the "victims" of imperialism were able to give praise where it was due. The successes of Western science and arts were never the creation of the politicians and they are not so now. Mishra is not condemning the arts and sciences in the West today. He is condemning the poor quality of political and economic leadership that the West is prepared not only to tolerate but actually vote for. And yes, open racism is more common today than it was in the second half of the 20th century. There was a time when the West faced many of its shortcomings and introduced compulsory education, decent housing, health care, and a range of other social benefits. We have stopped facing our reality. Even worse, we resent the mirror held up to us by people we once considered our inferiors, and by the tone of some response it seems we still do.
"We have stopped facing our reality." Perfect.
You know why? Because it's painful... Our egos and beliefs would be irreparably compromised. It takes guts to grow up. Far easier to keep on pretending.
As others have said, this is the same standard Guardian line being trotted out: It's all the fault of the West and their inbred and corrupt leaders (in this case). It's so old and tired and, in a way, cancerous; this constant low level exhortation to the west to hate itself, to criticise itself, to tear itself to bits, while ignoring the forces outside the west which seek to destroy the imperfect freedoms that we've gained. In a way, writers such as this one have won. The guilt that has caused and allowed a flood of migrants to enter Europe and bring with them the terror of Islam and the middle-east will facilitate the rise of the far right across Europe and all of our freedoms will be curtailed. I suspect that Pankaj Mishra will be forced to consider the current crop of western leaders as lovable rogues compared to what is inevitably going to come.
"forces outside the west" ?
Which ones? Have a look at this page : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures."The guilt that has caused and allowed a flood of migrants to enter Europe and bring with them the terror of Islam and the middle-east..."
A really really naive perspective. And I'm being generous. Please, wake up.Not last. What's wrong with being self critical? It's the only thing our culture should really be proud of. Are you still too young to learn how to face your own responsabilities? Far easier to address others' faults. And childish too. Unfortunately it doesn't work. Time to grow up.
I suspect I'm older than you and if you believe I'm being naive I suggest a good look in the mirror, and I'm being generous there too. There is nothing wrong with being self-critical, it's wholly good. But allowing that to degenerate into hatred of self is like a cancer that eats away at what is good about the west, and if you believe there's nothing good about the west (except it's freedom to criticise itself) then you are part of the cancer.
The west has plundered most of the planet resources until recently. It's facts. The main reason being its industrial development and linked unparalleled military might. Quite known.
You have the money and the bombs, you rule. I believe India had been quite pissed off during the british dominion and I don't feel always that comfortable my country being dragged into warfares someone else will profit. Yet we have to obey as it seems so far. Just to state a couple of examples.
The western recipe seems to have allowed a consistent part of its population to profit the game (in the last decades at least. In the first part of the 20th century a couple of generations were swept away by some western civilized and industrialized wars ...). And this is good of course.
The nasty side of the tale is if you don't have the right passport you might have a different perspective. And this, you should admit, is not that fair.I think the arrogance and unilateral vision being deployed in the last decade by the western elite is the main point the author wanted to address which I subscribe (and I bet 99% of the people living outside "the West" would).
Being able to understand the other's perspectives is what makes you civilized and a respectable human being in the end. Otherwise you are mainly efficiently armed marauders.
« Venceréis porque tenéis sobrada fuerza bruta, pero no convenceréis. Para convencer hay que persuadir, y para persuadir necesitaríais algo que os falta: razón y derecho en la lucha. » Miguel de UnamunoYou didn't answer my question: Which forces outside the west seek to destroy us? That would be interesting to discuss instead of a personal yet sterile rebuke.
Least but not last: I indulge myself thinking of me as a freethinker. I don't need to identify my personality with no flags nor cultures, even languages (I wish I was more talented thuogh). I didn't choose my country. Some fate decided since first of all I belong to the human race. It's not supporting your footbal team. It's trying to be just. I can criticize my past actions widely. I have no fear to admit my weaknesses or limits. I feel much better if I do. It's what makes you become sth better. It's not "hatred of self ". It's sth else coming from deep inside. Either you have it or not might be. There's one thing I really can't stand: lies and injustice. Stupidity and ignorance I may tolerate since it seems to be sth natural. But don't tell me lies. Please
An old girlfriend of mine was once telling sth I felt wrong and knew to be fake to some friends of ours. I contraddicted her immediatley since I simply felt it was "wrong", from a neutral point of view if you can get it ... She rebuked me I had to support her even if she was wittingly being wrong, because of our relationship of course... I never subscribed this mindset. I lost that girl and I found a far better person. That simply.
Since I don't feel belonging to this idea you call "the west" I can live happily without thinking I'm "part of it". Besides, which should be these "western" countries you are thinking of? Another quite interesting subject indeed.
The West doesn't need any contribute to his cancer. It's
Fabulous article. I had to look up the ninth-last word in the dictionary but I will eagerly use "epigone" from now on.
It doesn't seem to make any sense the way he's used it though.
What are the epigones of this generation?
Can something that isn't itself a generation be an epigone of a generation?
The crappy generation is the one now entering middle age. The epigones are the younger people happily accepting the same shoddy values.
My understanding is that epigone denotes a generation singular - which is why it would make no sense to refer to this generation 'and its epigones', then to 'the generations to come'.
I'd love to read an article by Mr Mishra on how the West may learn from India when it comes to eradicating corrupt politicians and nationally sanctioned social apartheid by way of the caste system.
Your response is precisely why we fail to appreciate the depths to which we have sunk. India is not perfect, but it does not mean that an Indian cannot envisage perfection nor regret the loss of good things in other countries he admires. Mr. Mishra is very clear about the high esteem in which the West's values were held by the peoples of the underdeveloped world. They regret that our values have slipped. We should do so, too. Yet, all we do is resent the way others see us and resent their advice. Would you scorn the obese person who encourages others to keep fit? Would you want Lazarus to ignore Dives? Good advice is not tarnished by its source. Indian politicians do no inspire many of their fellow countrymen, and that is why the educated Indian is saddened by the fact that today's Western politicians are no longer admirable, but tolerated by the people they lead. The article is actually calling on you to act responsibly as a citizen of the West, something you should never have stopped doing.
India's social issues is their problem not mine as long as my life is not affected by.
The mess'o potamia and the renewed cold war season aroused by the US and UK governments in the last decade heavily affect my life instead.
Besides, our ruling elite is not less corrupted nor is our social systems really that far from the caste system you mentioned. Poor people can't afford indulging to join this discussion, can they really?
I'm glad we're still able to be self-critical. This is where you start to grow up.
Thanks the Guardian and Mr. Mishra's perspective.
Mach's gut
Mr. Mishra has it all wrong in his wishful thinking. He wants a regressive ruling class to be the saviour of humanity!
The glorious French revolution against medieval serfdom and the subsequent bourgeois democratic revolution in Europe set humanity to a bright future. A bold but inherently weak Bolshevik revolution in an underdeveloped country to carry forward that revolution to its logical conclusion without the support of the mature working class of Europe was bound to fail.
It was precisely the subversion of that glorious path due to the bankruptcy of the European working class and the subsequent degeneration of bourgeois capitalism into a parasitic and decadent monopoly capitalism that has brought back serfdom and its medieval fundamentalism in its most virulent form ever.
The European working class who are the inheritors of the glorious French revolution and the only capable leader to propel humanity forward; is now infected with bigotry, hedonism, consumerism and are lumpenized to be the miserable enablers of worldwide serfdom.
This degeneration has by now even infected the venerable natural sciences - comments in: http://www.theguardian.com/science/life-and-physics/2015/jan/17/a-selfish-turn-around-cernAs depressing as it is I can see why we have ended up with venal self serving dicks or incompetent morons in positions of power, its because we look at our pillars of society and can't see any glimpse of light.
Since 2000 every section of our establishment has been proven morally bankrupt as a matter of deliberate policy
Paedophilia knowingly hidden within churches, BBC and government
Media collusion for a war of aggression in Iraq
Goldman Sachs pushing AIG off the cliff because they knew the taxpayer would be forced to pay off the fraudulent bets they were placing
Academia taking money from the coal industry to muddy the waters on climate science
Ratings agencies taking money from banks to rate worthless mortgages as triple a so the junk could be sold to pension funds
Where ever we look we we see either malfeasance or incompetence on a massive scale, there is no untainted sector and the problem seems so big that we don't believe it can be fixed so have fundamentally lost faith in democracy
Hi Rob I think a lot of the things you quite rightly point out are not new, corruption, media collusion, self-serving men at the top have been with us for ever. Resistance to them started to gain a foothold in the last century but has been pushed back by a counter offensive that utilises all the tools of the modern age, their aim is the same as in the past it is their complexity and intensity that has changed.
And as for the newish financial products that are ruining the world with negative investments that seek profit from failure and destruction and our governments insistence that these rouge markets can regulate themselves and then bail them out saying they are to big to fail is ironic and morally bankrupt but as the old saying goes "nothing new in heaven or earth Horatio".Sure, corruption has been with us Lilith but what has changed is the scale, visibility and willingness to maintain even a fiction of justice.
I look at the world and see the indefensible being defended day in day out, grown adults just brazening it out and hoping their bank balance and contacts will keep it out the courts and avoid disclosure.
You hear little argument over facts but a lot over tone, you maybe right about the facts but I object to you being angry about it.
2009 saw the largest robbery in the history of the human race, it happened in plain sight, we were helpless to stop it and the austerity that lead to is still hitting millions.
You may think that things have always been thus but I think we are reaching the point change, where we realise that the traditional avenues through state are no longer an effective way of solving problems and change will be forced
*since Lilith* I wasn't calling you Lilith and neither am I endorsing the fiction of women being responsible for all the world's ills.
It just really feels like we are sat on a tinder box that everyone knows is going to go up but we don't know the date or the trigger and that fear is causing our governments to act irrationally.
Rant over.
Have a good night everyone.
And who votes for them all?
You keep blaming the symptom while ignoring the disease & see how little changes.
You are right. Yet it seems the desease is the money and power we let someone seize. Someone whose names scarcely appears in the MSM I suspect. More than ever, politicians resemble the insane bufoons of a grotesque farce ... Given this scenario, does your vote really count? What's better, Blair's government or Cameron's one?
What would you suggest?
Pankaj is right.
I have always believed that recent leaders of western world do lack some degree of intelligence. Otherwise they should have foreseen the consequences of invading other countries.
Bush and Blair went in to Afghanistan and then in to Iraq. Even problem with Osama Bin could have been dealt with sending elite units of military and track the people and arrest or kill them. They were about 500 of them at that time. Sending in army ballooned the Talibans and Alqueda in to thousand of fighters.
Invasion of Iraq was against all the advice that Blair received from intelligence people saying we would have radicalization of some muslims.
Cameron and French President helped to remove Ghadafi and destablise Libya. All fighters , from Libya went to other parts of Africa and used their weapons they brought along with. We have now perhaps half of Africa fighting terrorism.
Many people here do not like reading truth that is why they go about equalization with problems in India rather than doing introspection.
Situation in west is such that any body can bring the daily life to standstill such is the degree of fear among the society and this has been a remarkable achievement of these politicians. Turning free society in to quasi police state.
When I receive my copy of the Spectator I always turn first to Rod Liddle. It is always a pleasure to see the truth written with a complete disregard of politically correct cant.
I read him online. I confess it made me chuckle when I read that column about reports of a fatwa from the prominent Saudi Arabian cleric, Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah. This fatwa apparently made it clear that it was perfectly permissible for him (or Muslims anyway - Rod seemed to think it extended to include him), if suffering from ‘severe hunger’, to eat his wife. Apparently, on finding no suitable snacks in the fridge, Rod used to stamp around and curse, not understanding that the answer to his problem was sitting a few yards away in the living room, watching a re-run of Wolf Hall.
Problem is that these were not failed politicians - they succeeded in getting elected, and through their success wrecked havoc.
Good article but Mr. Mishra should understand that Obama's words are as weightless as the Anglo-American Generation's ideas.
Surely almost ANY democratically elected politician is better than NONE at all !
Would rather live in a country where we at least HAVE freely elected politicians than the ones where they dont !Living on the crest of the wave? What, when those who were 'freely elected', then undermine the democratic process? Or didn't you read the whole article?
Yeah I did actually, my point is the pot can hardly call the kettle black, especially when they are not even in the same kitchen !
There is a BIG difference between Flaws in democracy and no democracy atall. I know which I preffer !
Today's politicians are indeed crap but they are playing a very poor hand dealt by their predecessors - the countries that claim the status of liberal democracies have inherited a foreign policy that was mendacious imperialism pure and simple. From the Sykes-Picot carve up of 1915 onwards European and US policy in the Middle East and Central Asia has been a tragic comedy of hypocrisy hubris and stupidity - all played out at the expense of populations throughout those regions. The only way that today's politicians could emerge with any credit is to admit that we created most of today's problems through our greed and duplicity and keep out of it - instead we carry on playing the Great Game and everybody loses.
I couldn't have put it better!
Better tell that to Cameron and his warmongering propaganda machinery of disinformation!
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I call on progressives of all persuasions to ignore Pankaj Mishra and challenge Islam to reform, for the following reasons:
1. It harbours an aggressive, reactionary ideology, Salafism, which promotes misogyny and intolerance. Salafism has been called the fastest-growing Islamic movement in Europe.
2. Salafism is bad for British society. In this important study, two thirds of the Muslims interviewed in six European countries said that religious rules were more important to them than the laws of the country they lived in. Almost 60% of the Muslim respondents reject homosexuals as friends; 45% think that Jews cannot be trusted; and an equally large group believes that the West is out to destroy Islam.
3. The pool of potential adherents to Salafism is growing fast here in the UK. There were 1.6 million Muslims here in 2001, now there are 2.7 million. This is due to immigration, a higher birthrate among Muslim women (3.0 compared to 1.8 for non-Muslim women), and more people self-identifying as Muslim. Some have claimed that the UK will be a Muslim majority nation by 2050, which is bogus, but a doubling or tripling of the population is certainly on the cards.
4. Islamic fundamentalism wants to expand and propagate. For evidence, see the Trojan Horse affair, where bids were made to get control of state schools and Islamify the curriculum, and the running ofillegal schools teaching homophobia and anti-Semitism.
5. Islamic fundamentalism is linked to terrorism. I know about the MI5 report which challenges the so-called ‘conveyor belt’ theory, a theory that assumes terrorists progress from increasing religious conservatism to terror. But MI5’s observation doesn’t negate the fact that Salafism pumps out a message – ‘We are god’s chosen and the infidel scum are trying to destroy us’ – which is seized on by terrorists. Nor does it adequately explain why at least 700 Muslims have left their communities to support Islamic State.
6. The greater danger to the UK is not terrorism, but deepening strife and hostility in society, as the Salafist population grows in number and exerts its hostility to democracy and many Western values.
7. No-go areas. We mocked Fox broadcasters last year for claiming that there were no-go areas in the UK, but they exist in Belgium and if the current trends continue, what’s to stop them emerging here?
It is time for progressives to wake up and reclaim this important struggle from the far right.Oh shut up!
Ain't you missing the point ....exactly as described in this article.
These lists of hatred produced by posters like you are brain dead and boring.
If there's anything in what I've said that is factually incorrect, or twisted somehow, I hope you'll let me know. I wrote it in good faith.
One may rightly call on Muslims to change their ways and one may rightly fear the coming social disturbances that the West will have to contend with as multiculturalism takes its toll. Yet, the article is not about Muslims, but about bad government by members of the moneyed elite, bad government that not only incites hatred through its foreign policies, but also destroys its native culture and society. The question posed by the writer is: Are the citizens of advanced western countries willing and able to change their governments? This is the crucial issue. If we do not change our rulers, they will lead our civilization to collapse. We let ourselves be distracted by calls for regime change in distant lands and ignore the pressing need for regime change at home.
Crappy is too polite a term to describe our political leaders- they do not lead - as was pointed out in GY article - whoever you vote for Capital rules - our leaders reflect that - they follow imperatives they do not lead.
This article is complete rubbish. Don't focus on the people. The issue is the increasing need for energy and the increasing competition between emerging empires. The middle east is currently where the turf war is playing out in the context of the collapse of western capitalism. If ever there was a structural ventriloquism then this is it.
The intelligentsia, perpetually locked in their desperate attempts to flatter themselves with elaborate insights and perceptions. It's okay, it keeps them off of the streets. Reality, like you say, so so dumfoundingly simple that there is no need for their hot air. The health of humanity is determined by exactly the same formula that determines the health of every other species on the planet. Population size divided by available resources.
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Excellent article. Our leaders act as if they have lost sight of their identity and try hard to reestablish it through new (and old) wars and conflicts. In this pursuit they are self-righteous and blind. It's like they defeated the virus of totalitarianism only to discover that they have become it. They've got the bug now. It's frightening to watch. They gamble our future and our children's future in this game.
Yes we can blame these leaders like Blair and Bush for intervening in sectarian religious wars, like Iraq taking sides after the war and failing to give Iraq a proper constitution that protects the rights of the minority Sunnis . Without fully understanding the ramifications of the prevailing demographics , and the struggle particularly between the Sunnis and Shiites and Iran and Saudi . Far to often we have presented by our politicians a simplistic choice between good and evil , which has not been the case ! Add to this the US and the UK incredibly corrosive double standards that sowed devastating sense of injustice ,and massive destruction and loss of life that has helped destabilised many countries .
But they could not have done without the agreement of their democracies . Yes some of the arguments to intervene were skewed and misleading . But they had the backing of their representatives and so we are all to blame ,far too often we have rubber-stamped our own government and leaders who have in turn has rubber-stamped the US and went gone on to make exactly the same mistakes in Libya and Syria .
The media does not come out of this well either and really need to raise their game .It is their job to probe and to give informative unbiased facts .So people who are not so informed can make well informed judgments. It is no good doing after the event articles wise articles . We need the media to be much more probing, and much less biased and much more information . As we need our MPs to insist on voting with their consciences and their heads rather than voting emotionally and badly informed !
Very well said.
During the run-up -- the "marketing campaign" -- to Bush the Lesser's Iraq invasion, the most dismaying thing was how **easily** his gang could get away with the Big Lie. In 2003, things were supposed to be different -- people no longer had to rely on a few broadcast networks and a handful of prestigious newspapers for information. Anybody could look up news sources beyond the Washington Post or the American media networks. With a few mouse clicks, anybody could investigate every Big Lie the Bush crowd put out. None of them stood up after a few minutes of digging.
And yet we still sent through with that idiotic, criminal war. And not a single one of the de facto traitors who launched the war (a traitor **damages** his country, no?) has suffered a single consequence. In fact they are all living quite well.
Bush the Lesser? In writing I referred to him usually as Bush jr. But yes, Bush the Lesser, Bush Minor, that's good too.
I prefer 'Shrub' as he is less even than his fool of a father - who proclaimed after the turkey-shoot of the road of death out of Kuwait "we've finally kicked the Vietnam syndrome" meaning presumably beating an much weaker opponent.
He also should never be forgiven for his statement at the first global warming conference in Rio (sent by Bubba in an typical of triangulation) that "the amerikan lifestyle is NOT negotiable ".
However the world must remember than the moronic electorate chose Shrub in 2004 when his utter failure was apparent fall to see.
What a bizarre thing to say about leaders who grew up during the Cold War, where foreign policy was an ideological battle between democracy and communism and nuclear annihilation was always a possibility.Having grown up after the defining wars and hatreds of the west’s 20th century, “in a world of no hard choices, neither economic nor political”, these historically weightless elites believed that “no matter what choice they made, there would be no disastrous consequences”.
It may be fair comment about Western policy from 1989-2001, a period when people like Francis Fukiyama declared that we had reached the "end of history". I remember myself thinking about the 2000 US election that it didn't much matter who won, as far as the rest of the world was concerned - what do US presidents really do anymore?
But 9/11 changed that. It allowed an ideological coup to take place. The neocon/PNAC brigade (of which Bush was not previously a member) took over policy. Now it was all about aggressively using US military power to re-order the world to exclusively serve the interests of the US. This was an insanely grandiose project and it failed the moment it was first seriously attempted (Iraq).
Obama is neither a neocon nor a naive liberal who thinks democracy will ultimately triumph if we sit back and do nothing. He is just deeply uninterested in foreign policy and America's wider role in the world.
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"Indeed, the slightest reminder of this democratic past incites the technocrats of politics, business and the media into paroxysms of scorn."
Perfect.
It's easy to focus solely on the spectacular failures of US and western foreign policy, but let's not forget the same geniuses who have turned the middle east into hell also nearly managed to collapse the world's economy in 2008. That train wreck was made possible in bi-partisan fashion by undoing financial safeguards put in place decades earlier by men and women far wiser than our current group of former National Merit Scholars. When the wheels did come off, our heroes saved their own crowd from loss while leaving the less academically talented masses to years of economic suffering.
The boomer generation of elites - media, finance, government - never had an occasion, such as world depression or world war, to which they were required to rise. Instead, through incompetence, malfeasance, and narcissism they made what crises they did face far worse, and where no crisis was in the offing they created one. Historians might consider referring to our era as the Squandered Age, or maybe just The Squandering.
Many have pointed out that of all the ways to rule, Democracy is not perfect, but is still the best available. Well I'd like to quaiify that with when the results of that Democracy start to fail the majority of people it is supposed to represent the frequent result is the rise of extremism, bigotry, and violence, and often backed up by sophistry and a compliant media. Currently the continued concentration of wealth and power is likely to create these problems again in my opinion.
Democracy comes in many forms - some weak and some strong. What Mishra is pointing out is that our democracy is being weakened from within and that most people are unaware of it. I think you are absolutely right that the concentration of wealth and power into the hands of a self-selecting elite is creating very serious problems - yet so many people seem unaware of the danger. Why isn't there a fire bell for such situations?
Thanks for linking to Rod Liddle's excellent article in The Spectator, I would have missed it otherwise and it was so refreshing to read such a sensible piece.
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It just cannot be said too often, Mr Mishra. But you have said it. Please continue, please go on.
Our main problem is this so called newspaper and all the other msm if just a few did their work without fear we would all be better off but they serve the establishment and cower from it.
Scarcely. Maybe you didn't read this line:
The modern west has been admirably different from other civilisations in its ability to counterbalance the arrogance of power with recognition of its excesses.
But he's writing about our rulers - politicians, media, bankers - not about the rest of us, anyway.
Humankind is flawed and therefore, inevitably all political leaders are flawed. So if anyone can name just one country outside of the Western democtratic principle that does things in a more fair, just and inclusive way than our leaders do, I'll concede defeat on the matter. If not I'll maintain that the democrasies have evolved into the least worst societies on the planet and that's as much as any society can realistically hope for.
The whole article falls apart as soon as the following was written.
"Racism, a beast cornered if not tamed after much struggle, has lumbered back to civil society in the solemn guise of “reforming” Islam."
As the author knows perfectly well, Islam is NOT a race.
It is absurd to say that 'the whole article falls apart' at that point. Yes, the use of the word 'racism' to describe a religion may not be appropriate, but we often use the word 'race' to refer to culture and identity so we know what the author is referring to - which, not least, is that many Moslems are discriminated against in precisely the same way that racists would discriminate against them. What word would you use? Differentism? But to say that the whole premise of the article is redundant due to one arguably awkward word (do we have an appropriate one?) is quite silly. Mishra's argument is coherent and very plausible,
Not sure when the golden era of responsive western leadership was? The Reagan/Thatcher era, LBJ and Nixon bombing the shit out of indochina, the McCarthy era, Nazi appeasment, the Depression or the generation that brought us WWI?
And while I would agree that liberalism is the most important of the Western values, it has always been more honoured in the breach than the observance?
Things are not particularly inspiring right now but crisis or the perception of crisis is the common currency of every era, things only look smooth with hindsight.
Racism, a beast cornered if not tamed after much struggle, has lumbered back to civil society in the solemn guise of “reforming” Islam.
Again with Islam is a 'race'. It isn't. It's a belief. It's an ideology. And like any ideology it has many faces. Certain faces of this ideology are abhorrently wicked and violent. As Christianity needed the reformation and later movements to reform, Islam needs the same. I don't believe this will be imposed successfully from beyond Islam, but we must be prepared to confront those who are the most dangerous zealots within Islam. Leaving Da'esh unchallenged will result in our taking in millions of 'moderates', putting vast swathes of territory in the hands of fanatics.
Semantics gets in the way a lot with this, doesn't it? The point is we all know what is being implied even if the exact definition doesn't quite match up - which means that we have a gap in the dictionary (which, in English, is extraordinary!) What we are talking about is invariably some form of 'differentism' and, as always, what is different is feared and (often deliberately) misunderstood.
You are correct. What is needed is an Islamic reformation, and that can only come from within. Meanwhile, the greatest achievement of the Christian Reformation - the Enlightenment - is being undermined by the pathetic elite, the so-called leaders of western culture, as they confront their own creation fashioned from conflict with as-yet unreformed Islam.
Mishra is spot on. Semantics apart.
The same people are also driving us to oblivion in many other ways. It is just a question of when, will it be war, global warming, consumerism, pollution. The great hope left seems only to pandemics which stop us in our tracks.
Are you the man with the sandwich board reading "The End is Nigh" who's always on Oxford Street? A gloomy fellow much given to apocalyptic rantings.
Good to see CIF operational off key topics AGAIN, major military trading partner executes 47 people in one day including a tribal thorn in it's side and public opinion not needed just in case the bloke he's been wearing as a hat for the last six years gives Dave further instruction on British International Diplomatic opinion........telling!
No, this article is the mainstream. The Saudi slaughter and Britain's apparent acquiescence is simply a side show for what Mishra has outlined. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees!
We were going towards a better society...it was joyful palpable.
This false tongues "politicians" are the backlash boys&girls of capitalism,
The psychopathic rich frighten to loose it all!Sadly, what some saw in tears during decades, comes now to his logical end.
Each hubris build on lies, falls!Too bad for our social and environmental situation.
40 years of wasted lifetime, stolen from us all !Wow that's about as defeatist an article as I've read all year. It must really suck to live in your reality Mr. Mishra?
What really sucks is to live in an era of Cameron's anarchy of disinformation, which seeks out to destroy democracy, liberalism, freedom of speech by blind ideological censoring of any communication whatsoever, and decimating the welfare state, and soon to be decimated the NHS, which is in its deaths -throe and replacement of the NHS with the evil forces of capitalism, in full compliance to his masters of greed and selfishness!
Yeah, Jimmy, It's not about happy. It's not a commercial that's designed to make you believe that if you buy a burger, all will be well. It's called reality and sometimes it's a cold slap in the face.
"The Crappiest Generation" has a nice ring to it. Is Tom Brokaw taking notes? History will not remember ours as a golden age. Surely we already know that without having to wait for some future scribe to make it official. Besides, many of us older folks can't even read Chinese.
We are floundering about in that dark, unhappy transitional period where the seeds of the old order's death have been sown but the form of the new order is still indistinct. So in the short term, alas, we will be far more capable of making things worse than of making them better. But the urge to DO SOMETHING will be strong, which can be a dangerous state of mind absent any coherent sense of what indeed that something might be. In times like these one needs to be thankful for small blessings; for example, the fact that America's current overt flirtation with fascism is being led by a foul-mouthed buffoon. It could be a lot worse.
Oh wow - America's current flirtation with fascism is only being led by Trump; think of how much worse it could be. Well, there is Cruz and while his poll numbers still aren't as high as Trump's, he is in 2nd. I think the form of the new order is quite clear - it's global capitalism with corporations in control of governments rather than the other way around. The corporate oligarchy seems intent on reducing the working class to something tantamount to slavery and the only agency we might deploy to successfully counter its power, that of government, has been completely denigrated in the eyes of most people. Meanwhile, global climate change proceeds apace. What I heard from Paris is that the time is now, if even now is not too late, and since that moment, a yawning silence from all concerned. It just does not bode well.
People who had to live, work and love pre 1980 are now very few and far between (over 55 year old). For me and my generation there was more to like about the 50s, 60s and 70s than there was to dislike; we were all certainly better off and worked in jobs that were "for life" with good company pensions, cheap travel to a relatively safe world and good fights to be won.
I feel very sad for those born in the late 60s and since - they believe that their neo-liberal warmongering self-centred present is so much better than the freedom, love and community which could be found then. And I am annoyed that they have let all the wonderful advances in the sciences be squandered over fear, selfishness and bitterness.In just eight years, Obama has added more debt to the US coffers than all of his predecessors combined, from Washington through Bush.
What a great example of a leader with no understanding of the notion of "disastrous consequences".
I think you'll find that Congress had something to do with the deficit.
In 2000, the U.S. defense budget was approximately $312 billion. By 2011, the figure had grown to $712 billion.
Then there are the corrporations that walked off with trillions of dollars, Halliburton being the most well known but follow the money and you'll find Lockeed, EADS, BAE, Boeing, Raytheon and Exxon did very nicely too.
Finally, let's not forget the banking swindle of the century aka the GFC where banks got billions from the US Treasury only to bump up executive bonuses and entitlements. Who was behind the recommendations to lavish the money on the perpetrators of the collapse? All ex bankers that had infiltrated government. Nice one.
Well the first half was great - up until the racism bit.
This problem has existed since long before our current crop of useless, gung-ho, lying, waste of space politicians.“Force does not work the way its advocates seem to think it does.” Instead of impressing its victim, it reveals to him “the weakness, even the panic of his adversary and this revelation invests the victim with patience”.
Force doesn't work anymore because real force is a war crime. Now we just do it stupidly and lose. And there is no end in sight to this nonsense.
I think the single biggest mistake western leaders have made in recent decades is to fail to grasp that the rest of the world has not changed along with the west. Western leaders smugly pretended that democracy in the entire rest of the world was just a few decades behind...and worse still, that it simply needed a little encouragement. The net result of this has been an epic failure of policy on the Middle East...where the true reality is actually centuries old rivalries and tensions having to play out long before anyone can even think of democracy.
Heck the west is rapidly losing its own grip on democracy. Political leaders in the US aren't committed to democratic values. The Republicans have publicly admitted that they seek one-party rule.
Failed politicians and tawdry nightmare, yes, as democracy is now obliterated as is the paramount obligation of EU governments for the internal security and health of the citizen of the EU and a living nightmare throws a dark cloud over the democratic voice and people of the entire EU as Merkel and Sweden invite in the entire nation of Syria and also Iraq and Afghanistan in the millions unchecked to crash into the borders and through the sovereign borders of the entire EU and be totally supported by the citizen of the EU with not a thought for the massacres exported from those regions against the people of the EU and where EU nations are at war.
It's great being part of the generation who is going to walk away with everything. We worked hard for it and deserve the comfortable retirement we are enjoying.
We offered you the chance to have more of the same but you rejected it in favour of silly idealism and the idea you could un-fuck the world by giving everything (including your future) away.
If you have nothing to look forward to you only have yourselves to blame. My generation planned a better future for you but you threw it back in our faces.
I retired 26 years ago, and I'm still going strong. So I'm all right too, Jack. But it's my children I'm sorry for. They seem to have little appreciation that things can get worse rather than better.
Nope, don't understand a word of what you are saying, just waving the magic pointy finger at all and sundry, how astute.
Yeah, let's get into the generational blame game... A period of relative wealth lasts about three generations on average for a society. Blame your kids if you like, but such relative wealth advantages don't last.
I've worked pretty hard all my life, and used all my savings and spent a year of no income to start a small business, and after getting things running I now pay most of my billeable income as taxes. Having my own little company, about 80% of what I bill to my clients goes to the government to pay direct and indirect taxes, employer contribution and compliance costs. I pay myself a salary mostly, rather than take dividends, and yet I expect my pension will be virtually nothing by the time I reach current retirement age, so I really doubt I will ever be able to actually retire before I die. I expect current and near term pensioners to have used up all available pension fund assets long before I'm due my share of the pot...
So current pensioners have been fed with the golden spoon. The next generation won't know what a pension is.
Force may not change minds, true, but it can stop you from being the victim of force against you. This is not the science of rockets. It's not racist nor intolerant to simply suggest that, with respect to Islam, which seems to be the impetus for this piece, until we can figure our which Muslims are peaceful, and which ones are directed by their faith to kill us, maybe we should keep as may of them away from us as possible. And, further, it's not our job to figure out who is who, to study the Koran say, and learn all the nuances, if there are any to learn. Reforming Islam is not a wildly radical idea (al Sisi has suggested as much), and it is certainly not a racist one. Here's a Question: are Muslims moderate only to the extent that they are not Muslim?
President Obama has demonstrated, as you seem to get, Pankaj, that we in the US understand the limits of force. At least, I do. But some people, here and abroad, seem to not understand that there are also limits to tolerance. You don't get a free pass to barbarism just because you claim you're religious and thats your deal. To the extent that I understand our current US strategy with respect to the Middle East, I'd say we're just trying to buy time with the hope that eventually Islam will reform itself to the point where we can all get along. I dispute the "crappy" generation charge--we didn't cause all the world's problems; we're dealing with them as best as we can.
Are you saying there are limits to western responsibility and the world isn't it our burden? Then who is insisting all the problems are whiteys fault? What do they think the west must do about it? What can we do about it? Are you suggesting the accusations are racist by implying only whitey is responsible for and can solve the world's problems?
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Thank god someone else has called bullshit on the current reality and the new "reality creators"in the hyper stage if capitalism which is fast leading The west Towards brave new world fascism
Ask yourself these questions:
have you ever known a decade in your life without a western war (aka American war)
Do you know anyone who is not on prescribed or illegal drugs to cope with the insanity of modern capitalism? Or are self medicating in some way?
How many people actually remember the anthrax attacks?
How many people remember how long we have been fighting in Iraq ? How many gulf war sequels?
Do you know anyone truely happy ? Truely happyI am mid 30s now and the west holds nothing for me now - no future, no society, no peace, no community
Endless war, drugs, delusions, memory wipes, propaganda, manipulation, zombie consumerism, aloneness, sex, money, powerSounds like you are spoilt with choices and want to blame society when you make the wrong ones. So sad.
So you are truly happy?
None of the things that the The has outlined affect you in any way?
If that is the case it's you that are truly sad, they are not saying that they personally subscribe to the bad habits, just that the majority of the western world are, you only need to look about you, the evidence is everywhere.It is about excess, phys. Yes, in part, I think it is. Too much stuff. Too strong a belief that stuff makes us happy and fulfilled, that having lots of stuff makes us good, true and gives our lives meaning.
It's a clash of two cultures. Non-Muslim ones are forever advancing, Muslim-majority ones are regressing. The latter needs self-reflection. It needs changing if wants to compete. In the top fifty innovative countries Turkey comes 37. Look at the oil-producing countries. Iran is in at 47. And when oil runs out, then what?
Enough of the excuses. They need to put their heads together and start using what's inside it.
And you think that non-Muslim cultures are advancing? Not in the US of A they aren't. We are most assuredly going backwards.
the near simultaneous influx of lobby sponsored right wing neoliberal extremist comment is manifest.
which USAmerican government departments took part in it?
So sad but so very true!!At 65 I am totally dismayed at the hell my generation has unleashed on the world!! We should be ashamed at what we have done!! Bombing,droning,torturing and killing innocent people on mass scales!!! For what??? Approaching 3 million citizens in our jails!!!! Insanity run amok in the USA!!! Police murdering citizens with impunity and the judicial system a money machine for the state/politicians/corporate prisons!!! Americans exceptional???? Exceptionally stupid and ignorant!
At present Iraq is governed in accordance with the constitution, adopted after a referendum in 2005. They have started to drive ISIS back. What if Iraq managed to struggle on and democracy became rooted there? It's not likely but who will say that failure is certain?
That was at the same time revelatory and deeply scary. Thank you for crystallising the weird sense of 'wrongness' I powerlessly feel as I watch our current generation of 'leaders' make us all understand how the German nation and it's fellow travellers managed to get lulled into 'gas chamber' territory a mere 70 or so years ago. Even as I grew up in the 70s and 80s, I couldn't quite figure that one out, but now I get it. #jezwecan certainly can't stop this juggernaut of idiocy. Who the hell can? Maybe we just need another Dachau moment to remind us that 'never again' really means what it says.
Gosh, some of the comments so far do reflect a serious inability to do nuance. That article was at once revelatory and deeply scary. It seems to crystallise the deep seated sense of 'wrongness' that so many of us intellectually feckless liberals feel as we watch this coming train wreck happen in an unsettling slo-mo. Being born in 1962, I was brought up in the shadow of the war - Dad's Army and 'don't mention the war' jokes - but never quite got how it happened. How did the German nation and it's various supporters (the Daily Mail was vociferous in its support then too!) manage to get to the gas chambers?
You know what.......I'm beginning to get it. #jezwecan or Bernie Sanders certainly can't stop this mad juggernaut in its tracks. Who the hell can? Merkel, by her actions, seems to remember how it happened. Perhaps we need another Dachau moment to remind us all.
Happy New Year!
I could have told you this long ago. I came to the conclusion that Baby Boomers are lousy leaders awhile back. Especially the conservative ones. The Boomers seem too stupid & arrogant. Let's move on to Generation X & the Millennials for leaders. Maybe they will be better.
Generation X. According to Wikipedia "Most demographers and commentators use birth dates ranging from the early 1960s to the early 1980s."
That includes Barack Obama, David Cameron, Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen.
Well things change n always change for good ....but good things come after a certain period of friction n turbulance such as d world is presently witnessing ....a compassionate not a imposing view of universe can create wonders for all humans r more or less d same as far as needs,abilities n sentiments r concerned ...when i was in graduating i had painted a poster of a huge American flag but the stars were painted black n on d white stripes between d red stripes it was written "each drop here represents black for it has bleeded too much n clotted fr too long"...it is actually something that i borroewed from the black power movement ......it gave me psychological safety vault when i myself faced racism on several walks of life.(i too come from a racial minority group).guys used to flock to my hostel room to have a glace at that mega poster.lo n behold a couple of years later Sir Barack Obama became d Ist African American to become d President of USA........n infact one of d greatest Presidents....
"Racism, a beast cornered if not tamed after much struggle, has lumbered back to civil society in the solemn guise of “reforming” Islam."
I don't know how to break this gently to you, Pankaj...but Islam is not a race.
...but Islam is not a race.
Lol, I always love it when someone brings up this old chestnut. Shows a willful misunderstanding of 'race' as a construct AND what is going on in general. Anyway, don't take my word for it, run a google search for 'debunking Islam is not a race' and discover.
Discover what? That a lot of Cultural Studies loons have decided that words don't have meaning? We already know that.
You may as well do a google search on "Homeopathy is an effective medical treatment". You'll find articles in the internet arguing that case. It does not mean that it is true.You may as well do a google search on "Homeopathy is an effective medical treatment". You'll find articles in the internet arguing that case. It does not mean that it is true.
There you go, you are capable of effective reasoning. Same goes for all the websites saying race is anything other than a construct. Go out there, discover, learn, enrich yourself with knowledge. You can do it, I have faith in you.
It could be worse; Generation X could be in charge. From what I've seen of them over the years, they will stress conventionality, but open the door to decadence.
An excellent analysis of the main issue facing the western societies in our time.
What is amazing though is that a neoliberal paper such as the Guardian has dared to publish this article.
It is also funny to see the deniers of the truths in this article twist and turn.
I do personally have a sad feeling that in Europe, we are bit-by-bit giving up our ideals of enlightenment, humanism and positive European identity of togetherness and solidarity.
And I am also quite certain that our values could never be corrupted by external force, coercion and bombings: our savage continent has emerged from butchery of WWI & WWII, and we endured quite significant internal terrorism until quite recently. (I attribute lot of credit to the EU)
We have to hand over our ideals ourselves, voluntarily if maybe not quite consciously, most typically on grounds of combatting "terrorism." Accepting curtailment of our fundamental freedom of privacy or differentiation of human rights would be examples of those, IMO.
However, I am personally quite convinced that the austerity - which has been the norm since 2008 and still ongoing until further notice - has been instrumental in undermining the feeling of optimism and economic security in our collective sentiment, feeding what is most tribal in us.
I do not have so extensive a longitudinal perspective, maybe, @38, but I find this to be the single most pessimistic period in my continent during my life. I do persist meanwhile in optimism that there will be a positive counter-reaction sooner or later.
I'm glad to see someone else putting inverted commas round "terrorism". We'd be a lot better off by banning the word. These folk, like the mass murderers in the US, are homicidal and often suicidal maniacs. In any western country, you are much more likely to be killed or seriously injured in a road accident than by the action of these morons. But I don't feel terror when I get into my car, and I doubt if anyone else does either. For that matter, I didn't feel terror, or even much bothered, living in London during the blitz and the V-bomb attacks in World War 2. Yes, you might die, but you are quite likely to do that sooner or later anyway.
The terrorists have yet to field wmd capability, I assume it's not for lack of trying, I assume that the security services have been at least somewhat successful in their jobs to prevent that from happening. But the fact remains it only takes one of the small devices to destroy London, and what Hitler would given if he had access to modern weapons.
I do not deny reality of terrorism at all.
SA were terrorists before National Socialist ascension. Baader-Meinhof were terrorists. Nationalist factions in France, Spain and Ireland have been terrorists. Lockerbie high-jackers were terrorists. Etc.
I am meanwhile worried that giving up our freedoms and values of enlightenment will achieve little in way of effectively reducing terrorism, while undermining what I found to be definitely positive about European identity and ideals.
If I should succumb to a terror attack, I'd probably piss my pants and be stricken by horror, and can only hope it would be over quickly.
However, I do not fear it in anticipation, because rationally it is not very probable, and such fear is the aim of random attacks on normal citizens.
In the Christmas issue of the Spectator, Rod Liddle described Calais as “a jungle of largely Muslim asylum seekers aching to get into Britain – presumably to be hugged” by “the liberals”.
Which is incorrect how?
So apparently, according to the author, the only wrong with the world at the moment is that some people don't like Muslims. Lamentable, true, but I don't think it plausibly stands as the single defining issue framing a civilization in decline. The fact that our global civilization is unable to coordinate its efforts and implement radical changes in order to prevent the human race from going extinct within the next few hundred years, is all you really need to know. But it's a much bigger story than who are the bad guys, the good guys, who the bullies and who the victims in the eternal struggles of civilizations. It's about the failure, decline and ultimate self extinction of an entire species.
A little bit elliptical in places but the sentiment is clear enough, all underwritten by the late Tony Jute whom I have not read: that said I agree with the tenor of what is said and specifically that the post-war generation is a crap generation! I belong to it. The Americans are possessors of the most awesome superiority complex which as we all know is the flip-side of its inverse. We all have to live with each other but when push comes to shove the final conclusion is that we believe we can act however we like and no adverse consequences will from our actions or more alarmingly such is the sweep and extent of our power we can in a jiffy change everything back how we wanted it before or thought it should be later.
These people are kiddies playing in a sandpit. It is infantile and has caught throughout succeeding generations. I should say that we are in a permanent state of being on the eve of the French Revolution as we wallow in our own Enlightenment. Anything but Anything is possible for us and more alarmingly the human species is innocent and perfectible. This is pure Rousseau and Rousseau led directly to Robespierre and the Terror.
The only difference is that Revolution was wedded ideologically to the betterment of Man while we already believe Man is bettered in the ossified system we believe to be reality, itself espoused to a one dimensional economic point of view that simplifies everything, like a self-regulating permanent motion machine. It is fantasy for the bone-headed who have a grasp of semantics but nothing else.
And we have hijacked all the vocab of our extremely tenuous morality so much so that our words ressemble the utterances of the Ministry of Truth. No wonder the muslims are in such angst.
Heaven help when we see those ghastly pious insiders from the American Congress, and the sundry diets and assemblies of Europe all waiting for someone to make a move so they can jump on the bandwagon, avoiding the tedious job of believing in anything or coming with a moderately sensible idea about anything, all to the counterpoint of collective angst regarding the holocaust and derivative unsupported and potentially catastrophic policies which only make black white and white black.
The Crap Generation - s
Well written article and I agree with all of the points raised except we should be looking much further back. After more than 100 years we are still directly suffering from the actions taken during World War 1. Think of the Middle East, a single statement by a UK government minister Balfour during that war in a attempt to raise war finance from rich US Jews, promised the Jews a homeland in Palestine, while at the same time promising the Arab nations full independence if they supported the UK in their fight with the Ottoman Empire; a promise cynically reversed at the 1919 peace conference at Versailles. This led to directly to the forced occupation by the UK of Mesipantania and the subsequent war atrocities carried out by the UK armed forces in the 1920’s & 1930’s, including the proposal by Churchill to use mustard gas on innocent civilians which was only stopped at the last minute. After all this is where the World War 2 Bomber Command leader Harris earned his nickname “Bomber”.
There are many, many more events where the UK did not cover itself in honour; but I think from the short comments above you get a good idea of why the Middle East is in such a mess and is just one example of the legacy of World War 1And now Merkel tops all the failed politicians creating tawdry nightmares we live in now in Europe.
Here is the harsh truth about foreign policy, there are no good or right answers. When the West just trades with dictatorships, they are condemned by the kind people who read this paper. When they use sanctions, they are condemned, and when they use force, they are colonists.
Since we can't cut ourselves off from the world, the reality of foreign and trade policy is the least worst choice. It is very easier for people to scream war monger or go on protests, but the people who do this don't have a practical alternative.
Oh btw you can't be racist against Muslims, because Islam is a religion and not a race. It makes about as much sense as being racist against Ukip supporters. A religion is a freely choosen collection of ideas, and just like a political philosophy it is valid to criticise those ideas.
The idea that the West is responsible for the woes of the Muslim world is non-sense. Yes Muslim nations fell to non-muslim colonial nations, there were of course many muslim empires. However this happened, because the Muslim world lost the technological and scientific lead it had over the West.
As the Islamic faith has become more extreme, conservative and fundamentalist, the muslim world has become weak. As the Christain world has taken the opposite journey, and become less religious, the Western world has become a scientific and technological powerhouse.
So maybe, and here is wild idea, if the Muslim world taught their young people science and engineering, instead of getting them to learn a 1000 odd year old religious text by heart, they might be a bit more successful. Nah, that is crazy talk, it is all the West's fault.
Before anyone accuses you of Islamophobia/racism, here are some Arab intellectuals saying almost exactly the same things you have just written in your last two paragraphs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvvvomANbRo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAPKYKhTp8U
Here is a definition of the term 'neoliberal'
1. Pushing the false american and british agenda of 'freedom and democracy'.
2. With the true intent of providing 'freedom' for global corporations against the interests of the people.
3. Even supporting, covering up, and encouraging violence in its name.The 'LIBERAL' in 'neo-liberal:
1. In support of a post-modern view of classical liberalism: That is single issue politics.
2. Overly focused on politics of 'individualism' and navel gazing, a detractor of cooperative efforts.If you want a poster-child to put a face to this not-so-abstract concept please look no further than Samantha Powers (US's ambassador to the UN).
Guardian is the ever faithful cheerleader for her sort.
The 'NEO' in 'neo-liberal':
1. Pushing the false american and british agenda of 'freedom and democracy'.
2. With the true intent of providing 'freedom' for global corporations against the interests of the people.
3. Even supporting, covering up, and encouraging violence in its name.The 'LIBERAL' in 'neo-liberal:
1. In support of a post-modern view of classical liberalism: That is single issue politics.
2. Overly focused on politics of 'individualism' and navel gazing, a detractor of cooperative efforts.If you want a poster-child to put a face to this not-so-abstract concept please look no further than Samantha Powers (US's ambassador to the UN).
Guardian is the ever faithful cheerleader for her sort.
Judtwas a majestic figure but why such a lone voice given the penetrating accuracy of his commentary?
Imperial wars abroad, class wars at home. Sadly, Western Imperial policy is responsible for too much of the unrest around the world.
Just as the Americans widened the Vietnam War and gave rise to the Killing Fields through their operations in the Parrot’s Beak region when they were withdrawing from South Vietnam, then G.W. Bush expanded Al Qaeda recruitment by invading Iraq, so now, when the West’s power is diminishing and the rule of law is actually in the interest of the bellicose and warmongering militarists who comprise our ruling classes, in their bloodlust and fury at their diminishing power they are still viciously lashing out where possible, currently through drone murders.
Invading Iraq turned a nasty dictatorship that killed people into a make-believe democracy that killed far more, while creating a failed state in which al-Qaeda and ISIL flourish, also altering the regional balance of power to the benefit of Iran’s ruling clergy by removing two leading enemies – the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.
A similar war – this time, a class war – is simultaneously being waged at home. Wages stagnation is the outcome of the programme carried out by transnational capitalism and the mainstream politicians that it owns, working together with the trade union traitors, to make the working class pay for the decline of Western/American capitalism. Financial deregulation meant that in contrast, in just the last generation, the richest 1% Americans almost quadrupled their incomes.
In Imperial America today, increasingly in Europe, the divide between the richest and the poorest is about that of Rwanda and Serbia. America is a country where the vast majority of the population is impoverished or nearly so. Earnings of most U.S. workers puts them at or near the poverty level for a small family.
As with the perpetual war against an abstract noun, that decline is also due to post-World War II’s historically weightless ruling clique believing that “no matter what choice they made, there would be no disastrous consequences”. But as should be obvious from the refugee influx into Europe, or the NATO warmongers' inability to enforce their writ in the Ukraine, behind the feelgood facade propagandised by the mainstream corporate media, the West is increasingly fragile. Denial of these global crises leads to a refusal to adapt that is ultimately self-destructive.
Well articulated.
What is amazing is that with all the think-tanks and intelligence agencies, and all the supposedly smart analysts and strategists working in these organisations which at the service of our governments and leaders can't put together a cogent analysis just as you ant the author of this article have done in just a few short paragraphs.
Not recognising the problem is the the biggest threat to their own control and power.
About 44 million Americans are considered the poverty level, and that is poverty as defined by the US government.
44 million out of over 300 is not the vast majority as you say.
Very well said! Good analysis of the whole ghastly unending globalist mess, which keeps us hell bent toward the 6th great extinction, "and damn the torpedoes".
And here is a definition of the term 'liberal democracy':
Since the term 'Liberal Democracy' is a sacred cow; never to be questioned, let us deconstruct it a bit:
'LIBERAL' means:
The Liberty for a select few to plunder and control the resources of the planet for their own interests.
It also means the liberty for the masses to entertain themselves endlessly using their genitalia and other sense organs as long, as they don't use their collective minds to be critical of their 'liberal democracy'. After all, they have set up a good gig. Why allow it to be ruined by mere plebs!?
Consumption is the corollary of entertainment; it is heart of the economic system designed and controlled by the 0.1%
'DEMOCRACY' means:
A representative (never direct) form of government, which is purchasable using money.
Once purchased, the 'elected representatives' craft laws and policies at the behest of the moneyed elites, and enforce these rules using the armed forces funded by the citizens through their taxes.
A very good gig indeed!, while the plebs are entertained, the masters get fatter and fatter, all the while believing that we are at the pinnacle of 'freedom and democracy'
The hubris and arrogance of it all stinks to high heaven!
We should learn to let other cultures live and learn as they must without our interference and misplaced judgements.
We should also try to bring about a truer form of democracy for our own countries which serves the needs of it commonest citizens first and foremost.
Interesting reaction.
'Liberal' - Respectful and accepting of behaviour or opinions different from one's own
'Democracy' - a form of government in which the people have a voice in the exercise of power
(OED)
Of course, people can interpret their own experiences as they seem fit, but these are the understood definitions.So sadly you are led to believe; yours are book definitions, with no connection to reality where the things are thoroughly bastardised.
Often a case of term no longer applying to the reality in which it is used. However in this case the definition of the political system intent and activities is quite accurate, even contrary outcomes as you perceive do not negate the definition.
The system still remains in place and is accessible to all parts of civil society to "game" as best they can for their particular benefit.
This article has some insight into the failings of capitalism's plutocrats, but the "male chums" stuff is facile. The female members of that class are patently in it up to their necks.
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We certainly sorted those Cambodians out with our carpet bombing. To be fair there were Moslems there as well. The Khmer Rouge made short work of them though and then became our allies for more than ten years. Brilliant!
"We" are not Henry Kissinger.
Dont diss the guardian. You are all bang on. Despite the plethora of anti Guardian comments, it plows on. A magnificent institution. The so called free world has only this organ and the Huffington post for company.
everyone knows foreign policy has been a bag of spuds, I can hardly believe it as it unfolded let alone future generations, how Blair is a free man is beyond me but it's not about nothing, follow the money!
A serious question:
Given the domestic and global circumstances, and from what you see, hear, and think for yourself, which of the two would you prefer as a leader of your country:
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Good article but it could also have said that those who create and maintain this new nightmare reality do not themselves have to endure it nor do they pay the price for it. Neither they nor their families will be among the victims insulated as they are by the enormous wealth that their positions also bring. This is why the continued freedom from prosecution enjoyed by Blair is so damaging, it acts as a daily reminder to the world of the moral vacuum and corruption that lays at the heart of our society.
So it is all the west's fault and anyone who is against Islam is a modern day racist. Islam would be lovely and peaceful had it not been for Western interference.
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This debate is a good read, but all commentators are the lucky residents of affluent first world countries.I have recently returned from Cambodia, a country I know very well having lived there for many years. There is virtually no political debate mainly because most of the population is uneducated and ignorant. Putting a meal on the floor every night and finding enough spare cash to be able to pay corrupt teachers so the kids can learn to read and write takes precedence.
Of course they were also the receipients of massive amounts of US bombs and Chinese land mines. They were bombed back to the Stone Age and then it got worse. Cambodia has a sizeable Moslem population, Cham people who were terrorized by the ultra nationalist Khmer Rouge. Those who equate Moslem and Arab have obviously never been to SE Asia where one of Australia's neighbours is the most populous Moslem country in the world.Me too. One of the biggest learning experiences of my life. A communist country where people are happy. That's not right is it?
Beautifully written article and I'm sure far too close to the bone for many who are cited or indicted in this piece. I can almost hear their howls now as they attempt to marginalise any dissent as Judt pointed out. It is into this moral vacuum that Jeremy Corbin walked earlier this year to great success, with his sense of self and ideology still intact after many years in the cesspool of modern politics.
Modern western society is the least racist, least sexist, most self-examined, and most liberal society of any significance that has ever existed.
We should all be profoundly thankful to have had the great fortune to be living when and where we live. As a group we are living the most free, the most comfortable, and the best lives that have ever been lived.
Can it be made better? Of course it can.., but all this hand wringing and whining is pathetic.
Tell that to the gun lobby in America mate. And define freedom to the masses on minimum wage who depend on food banks to survive. Least racist? Just check the blog.
it's fine to strive for perfection, but it's not fine to say that anything short of perfection is bad.
Given that we can't be perfect, it's okay to take some pride in being the best.
The former, Western society pre the invasion of Iraq.
The latter, Western society pre Reagan and Thatcher.
I thought that was the point of this article.
It seems to always come down to materialism. If a few are extraordinarily wealthy, we use that to justify calling ourselves the greatest. I will admit that even the poor are relatively better off materially than even kings just a few hundred years ago, but does that justify the mass murder committed by the greatest military power in history any more than the mass murders and brutality of our declared enemies?
I have not the answer, but I suspect that the human race has faulty genes that direct us toward tribalism and violence aimed at our own fellow man.
From my small neck of these contemporary Western woods the most obvious symptom of our selfish, mediocre, consumerist society is it's popular media. In an age where we have the greatest diversity of information dissemination we appear to have one central tune played - a lullabye meant to lull us into consumer complacency with short, staccato blasts of fear to distract us from the reality of the system which wants to keep us thick an uninformed using demonisation and blame. The few who are playing this tune do it for remorseless greed and self-interest. They promote politicians and causes which suit their bottom line. The fact that the masses are so compliant in dancing to this tune illustrates the contempt with which we now hold education beyond a material meal ticket. I think WB Yeats had the sense of it in his line about the worst being full of passionate intensity and the best lacking conviction. And look what happened then. Those who don't even bother to even know history. You know the rest [I hope].
our selfish, mediocre, consumerist society
Could you name a more advanced, successful and free society? Mediocre my arse!
We have the highest living standard humans have ever achieved.
Some people are just never happy, or don't know how lucky they are.
I thought this was going to be a good article. I agree the West, by and large, has had inept and moronic leaders since the early 90's, but I was also hoping the article would do more than criticise G.W. Bush and Tony Blair for their foreign policy blunders. From a political perspective the 90's was almost a non-decade. Western economies were strong, Communism had been defeated, then, suddenly, the Western world was thrown into chaos and required intelligent, nuanced politics but, instead, we had politicians who had no strategies in dealing with the new world of violence we were entering. It's not just politicians being morons, as G.W. Bush and Blair obviously were, there's also a complicated context in which those politicians work. We were very unprepared for how the 21st century was going to unfold. But what's the moral of the article? Don't criticise Islam. Don't ask how much diversity a society and government can contain. Don't be concerned if Islamic terrorism is entrenching itself in your society. If you're white and affluent you're a pig, etc., etc. Could have been an intelligent article looking at the violent transition from the 20th to the 21st century and how politicians failed to deal with it, but it feel back on the same old culture wars.
Blair should rightly be criticised for the Iraq invasion.
An accurate view of his foreign policy legacy would also have to acknowledge he was right about the Balkans and Northern Ireland.
I agree with your assessment of the article. He could have just written "Shut up, you western idiots" and saved himself a bit of time. Because that's pretty much all the article boils down to.
I forgot Blair was quite effective in the Balkans and Northern Island. Perhaps it shows politicians are more effective at solving problems that are closer - both culturally and geographically - to their home than further abroad. If we can take that as a rule, putting the dogma aside, it means that the Middle East region needs to solve its problems, despite the international origins of those problems. Yes, Western governments have made crazy-bad-huge mistakes in the Middle East, it's a tragedy for all our humanity, but the only thing politicians and the Arab people can do is start to problem solve, negotiate, reason and compromise etc., etc. There's more than enough blame and suffering to go around. And despite what this article says maybe Blair can be a lesson for that?
Perhaps it shows politicians are more effective at solving problems that are closer - both culturally and geographically - to their home than further abroad.
I'd imagine that would certainly be a factor. It seems pretty clear that Bush, Blair and their respective governments just had no idea what they were getting into.
It could also be a bit of "Well I've been right before" (in Blair's case) hubris. Maybe when politicians get a few things right in a row they stop questioning themselves and their assumptions so much? (or giving proper consideration to dissenting opinion) Politics rewards individuals with a great deal of self-belief/self-confidence.
Looking at Blair's personal history/rise in politics, from leader of the opposition to PM:From his point of view, he'd pretty much gone from success to success up until Iraq. He'd convinced his party that his way would win Labour government in 97, and he'd been proved right. That's got to have an effect on a person's ego.
Add the other successes in between 97 and 03, and by the time Iraq came around, his ego must have been seriously inflated.
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In 5-6 decades we've gone from Reds under the Beds to Muslims under the Mattresses. The more things change etc!
With the booming world population and population shift due to climate change, it's only going to get worse.Racism, a beast cornered if not tamed after much struggle, has lumbered back to civil society in the solemn guise of “reforming” Islam.
I suppose the brave Liberals and intellectuals (both muslim and non-muslim) within the Islamic world who are making similar calls for progress and reform are racist too?
These people are the genuine Islamic Left. They are a minority, but for some reason this paper hates them.
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Because 'real' Muslims hate the West and all it stands for doncha know. Both the left and hard right are singing the same tune on this one.
Both the left and hard right are singing the same tune on this one.
True, sadly. See some of the people Ken Livingstone associates with and welcomes into the fold.
Racism, a beast cornered if not tamed after much struggle, has lumbered back to civil society in the solemn guise of “reforming” Islam.
This the cheap rhetorical trick of terrorism appeasement. Because accusations of racism are unanswerable, it gives a pass to Islam to ignore calls for obviously overdue reform that would see the incorporation of Enlightenment values.
Thank-you for this surprisingly rare but absolutely clear-eyed perspective Pankaj MISHRA - much needed - timely - and thanks, too the The Guardian for publishing this. The whole Augean Stable of western politics and its media moguls-backed base and vested-interest dark underbelly need a thorough flushing out! Let's hope this "cri" has the power of another "J'accuse"!
“Force does not work the way its advocates seem to think it does.” Instead of impressing its victim, it reveals to him “the weakness, even the panic of his adversary and this revelation invests the victim with patience”. A powerful statement indeed. I see a lot of truth in this piece. Peace.
Hmmm - if one was an observer from another planet, you'd think we were a crazy lot hell bent on wiping ourselves out over religious nonsense and land boundary issues.
Either that,or the similarity of our behavior to the inhabitants of their own planet would make them feel homesick.
Ho hum. Nevertheless the West and its values, for all of its faults, seem to represent the best hope for mankind. And so many people are voting with their feet, trying to get in. I would say that the lesson for the West , and indeed the rest of the world, is that our " interference" is not wanted. I am at peace with that. All I would hope for is that Western values have primacy in Western nations. The rest of the world can make their own choices, with consequences.
It is the case that Western values have come under assault from within, from those who desire the privileges that liberal democracies and their welfare provisions provide( however imperfectly) , without the commitment to the values that are inseparable from the benefits. Our leaders may not be responding ideally, it is true, but who would have envisaged the kind of assaults on our societies that are occurring? The paradox is that freedom, especially freedom, sometimes has to be defended by force.I completely agree. Close the borders, and police them harshly. Let the rest of the world enjoy the pleasures of their great civilizations while we suffer the indignities of our "tawdry nightmare" unencumbered by the great hordes who would partake freely of our world, while simultaneously demanding it be re-shaped to comfort them.
Except don't close the borders too tightly or you won't be receiving the flood of cheap imported goods that help make present western life possible.
Laughable cliche-ridden tripe. Do tell us, then, please: if Western civilization is so tawdry and troubled, where in the world are human rights so feted? Russia? The lush lands of the Arab Spring? Somalia? China?
There must be some place that you have in mind that serves as an example for us; to contrast with this "tawdry nightmare" that you fantasize about?
So the West is so bad millions of refugees flee to it.
This article epitomises the lack of logical thinking of left wingers. From economics to immigration, they have not got a rational thought to string into a sentence let alone a newspaper article.
The west has destroyed the societies of the middle east , bombed it's cities and population, left the body parts of children, mothers, fathers and friends left to rot in the desrt sands. The so called "west" is militarily powerful, it's societies relatively controlled and the refugees whose countries have been pounded into smithereens by western wars have no place else to go if they want to live. Try putting yourself in their shoes; where would you go or would you stay and wait for a western bomb to obliterate you?
Spot on article about the political leadership that has betrayed a generation in pusuit of a democracy it subverts at every turn. Well said!
"Spot on article about the political leadership that has betrayed a generation in pusuit of a democracy it subverts at every turn. Well said!"
You are full of the western self hate, which is destroying our great societies. The problems in the Islamic world are from the Islamic world - or do you think the psychopathic, kleptrocatic, genocidal, monster Saddam, and his spiritual brother Gaddafi were examples of reasonable Islamic leaders?
Islam is the problem, not the West - or can you name the network of Islamic nations which have rule of law serving justice and decency?
Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Al Quida, ISIS, Boko Haram............... Islamic, founded right from the Koran word for word.
'Flaccid' is an odd way to describe an election. Erection, I can see, but an election? What do you mean?
I'm a bit sick or articles having a go at 'The West'.
The West, despite it's imperfections, should be proud if it's achievements. Democracy, Human Rights, Social and economic freedom, civic institutions, Law and Order, the advancement of science, technology, healthcare, education and the Arts.
What about writing an article about the failure of civic society and leadership in the Middle East and North Africa. What about the litany of failed states, religious autocracy and oppressive dictators?
Perhaps it's about time we stop taking our achievements for granted.America and the west is responsible for putting many of those "oppressive dictators" in place (purely for humanitarian) reasons of course. There always was however a lot of money to be made
As I posted a bit below, I am not taking European achievements for granted at all - even if you might disagree what constitutes an achievement.
To me, the great achievement of Europe was to evolve through renaissance-reform-enlightenment into a continent which values are humanism, enlightenment, critical thinking and positive common identity encouraging solidarity.
Criticizing ourselves, as much as others, objectively is part of that achievement.
To find recent US-UK foreign policy in Middle-East "objectively great" would be bit of a stretch, don't you think?
Also, similarly, accepting religious text over constitution - IE and PL as ingenious, condoning religious courts as semi-imported example - should be open to criticism because it goes against primacy of constitution. (IMO, that is)
Some random fanatic, it turns out, can make their reality far more quickly, coercing the world’s oldest democracies into endless war, racial-religious hatred and paranoia.
This is hardly new if one can remember as far back as the murder of the Crown Prince in Serajevo. Shouldn't be so hard to do that for a historian.
And Sir Thomas More certainly predicted this in his "Utopia." We live it now. Shouldn't be a surprise that we have endless relatively small wars with our neighbors.
In 1914 the best and the brightest of Austria-Hungary's elite were to be found in the Foreign Ministry.
West bad, Islam good but on wrong track a little because of the Bad West.
There summed it up for you.
No.
Geo power-politics undertaken btw both West and East, selective and self-serving condemnation and supporting of "evil vs acceptable" regimes and external toppling of regimes without pragmatic follow up plans are dangerous.
Or "bad" if you want to resort to black n white emotive language.
Islam is just a religion, and like all religions does ill in hands of zealots and bigots - probably quantitatively more so at the moment than most, but Christianity was at this stage in the Middle Ages.
Woe is us if it takes another five-six hundred years to resolve the conflict between civil society (political administration is constitution driven, temporal and spiritual are separated) and theocracy.
Can this gentleman explain to us for example why 1000's of 'refugees' in Calais undertake every effort to come to a Western country just like Britain which from his point of vu is regarded as 'racist', 'islamophobic' etc. and run by a 'corrupt' leadership?!
Mishra is a brilliant writer and every word of this rings so true.
Yet...............
He's pissing in the wind. The mores, ideas and proclamations of the very people and media he tilts at are so deeply entrenched that nothing is going to shift them.They are who they are and will lead us into a new era of bigotry and jingoism and stupidity. They are the kind of leaders you get at the end of a era - namley as Mishra says everything western civilisation has created that is good and worthwhile.
The mores, ideas and proclamations of the very people and media he tilts at are so deeply entrenched that nothing is going to shift them.
On the one hand I understand what you are saying, but on the other hand this degree of rigidity is precisely why empires collapse; and rather quickly once the fall starts.
Utterly "right-on" column. And of course DonEvans (below) is also right, that the West's materialistic, ethical bankruptcy IS inextricably tied to our other Horrible non-Decision, to keep running our "civilization" on Fossil Fuels. That non-"Decision," not only has empowered the craziest, most tyranical Fascists in history (the Saudis, et.al.) to wreck their insane "ideological" havoc on the world, but also is speeding our entire species toward either outright extinction, or at least a horrendous culling -- the like of which can barely be imaged.
Such a culling will NOT leave centralized manufacturing, high-tech, the internet, and grossly over-centralized food production still functioning. Of course the Arabs (as THEY all die) can still be superior because Only Their God Is Right.
We have the means to Change all this but do we have the will? Numbers can defeat minorities even now. Witness Tunisia et al. But and it' a big one: the media must cease colluding with power and act for all not narrow capitalism. It is already late. The ethical world is shrinking to be replaced by a chaotic anarchy. Back to basics? Obama is the best we have but only with media support and less jingoism and bigotry. Living in fear - be it floods or phantoms.
The industrial revolution brought into existence a parliamentary form of government that served the industrial and business classes well, but our venal elected representatives treat us with contempt. We now live in the cusp of a information technology revolution, but are still saddled with this antiquated form of government that really has no other purpose but service to the multinationals and banking industry.
In a wired society every citizen becomes a parliamentarian only a mouse click away from true democracy.Hear Hear,
This is the big elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss.
The likes of the Guardian are hoping against hope that this problem would disappear if ignored long enough.
The sizzle that comes from this article reminds me of the fizz you get when you mix baking soda and vinegar together. Doesn't accomplish a whole but interesting to watch the first time.
Thank you Pankaj Mishra for your insightful and thought provoking article. I just hope that the excesses of our global ruling class and its indifference to man made and nature made catastrophes might not make it impossible for "the generations to come" to even exists.
But in spite of the despair the constantly worsening situation creates in me and others, in spite of the constantly rising number of human individuals suffering from the atrocities of war and violence and hatred and indifference, writings such as yours do provide some solace, and yes, perhaps even a bit of hope.
Yeah we Anglo-Saxons are so crappy. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_malnutritionIndia's malnutrition has gone down from 29% (1990-92) to 24% (2004-06). This at a time when Indian GDP per capita PPP went from ~ $1,800 to ~ $3,200 (http://www.tradingeconomics.com/india/gdp-per-capita-ppp)
So earnings go up about 80% but malnutrition only goes down 5%. Cameroon managed a drop from 34% to 23% when it's GDP per capita PPP fell in that period to ~ $2,550 (http://www.tradingeconomics.com/cameroon/gdp-per-capita-ppp).
Now that is a scandal.
Thank you. A bunch of straw men in the last 40 years or so. But this has/should be obvious. Why do people give their future to such idiots? More relevant, we can argue the finer points, but with no cohesive long-term vision and planning, no altruism, only greed, and empty gestures of power mongering on offer, the future is bleak.