Great powers’ rivalry and the decline of US and Western European domination of the world: great opportunities for former colonies
By Azwell Banda
It must be the most urgent task of every conscious progressive Zambian, from the 1st of January 2023 onwards, to work to defeat imperialism, colonialism and their evil money and parasites in Zambia.
We must refuse to be seduced and trapped by US and Western Europe’s crumbs and poisoned praises and entreaties while they simultaneously plunder our resources and keep us in extreme poverty. We must reject their fake “democracy” and rotten “civilisation” which entails extreme poverty for us, and great wealth and prosperity, for them. To achieve this, we must exorcise the demons of their bad influences among us and remove from power their surrogates!
In our communities, we must isolate, in our “civil society”, those groupings hell bent on surviving on our poverty, as they trade in this poverty for the alms from the US and Western Europe. These groupings are the US and Western European “missionaries” in our country whose sources of livelihoods are the alms they receive from the US and Western Europe and their NATO partners, as they trade in our poverty with them. The current world situation is pregnant with promise for all countries suppressed, oppressed, dominated and exploited by the US, Western Europe and their NATO partners. The US, UK, EU and NATO global dominance and hegemony are being terminally challenged by rising Eastern powers represented by China, Russia, India, Iran, and others. The US, UK, EU and NATO ‘Western European Civilisation’ war in Ukraine and planned military confrontation with China offer the greatest opportunity for escape for us, and all countries like Zambia, from their evil neo-colonial clutches.
What, then, are some of the defining features of the world situation going into 2023?
The world capitalist system, dominated by the US, UK, EU and NATO, is in a prolonged, deep, intractable systemic and structural crisis and on the verge of recession. The US, UK, EU and NATO have no solutions to this crisis other than recklessly marching forward into a nuclear Third Word War, an apocalyptic world event. They cannot reset the world economy for their domination, ever again. They have become an existential threat to themselves and the entire world. We are witnesses to the birth of a new global world order.
We are witnessing the accelerated loss of global financial domination of the world by the US through its dollar. For more than 70 years, the global financial system has been dominated by the US dollar. The US dollar had become the most sought after currency in global trade and financial deals. It had been regarded almost with mythical and mystical powers and imbued with utmost faith as a store of value and means of exchange, until Russia invaded Ukraine on 24th February, 2022. The extremely foolish, naïve, self-destructive and self-defeating massive sanctions imposed on Russia by the US, UK, EU and their NATO allies have effectively dealt the US dollar its final death blow: the East and all other countries of the world hitherto under the boot of the US and its illusory mighty dollar can devise ways of trading and conducting financial transactions without the dollar. Zambia too, can grab this opportunity. With HH and the UPND in government, this is impossible.
The world is waking up to the rude shock that much of the fake value imbued in the dollar actually is no different from any Ponzi scheme – the US government bullies and oppresses the rest of the world so that it remains the only super power with unrestrained and unrestricted power to print a global reserve currency whose value is completely unrelated to the real global economy! By fast evolving trade and financial transactions away from the US dollar and the euro, the East is challenging the global dominance of the US, UK, EU and NATO; which is why the world must brace for the US and its allies’ war against China to prevent this from succeeding, a war which will engulf the whole word and may inevitably lead to a nuclear Third World War.
Having failed to resolve the underlying causes of the global financial crisis of 2007/8, and instead fuelled it further by “nationalising” the debts of private banks and other financial institutions, the pandemic disrupted the supply of labour and global value chains of the global capitalist system, further worsening the already existing systemic and structural terminal crisis of the global capitalist system dominated by the US, UK, EU and their NATO allies.
Moronically, and completely going against the grain of their own “classical economics”, faced with historic levels of rising inflation, cost of living, fuels, electricity and everything else, rather than boost wages by awarding above inflation increases, lowering interest rates to enable the real economy to boost production to meet rising demand due to higher wages, all the central banks of the great powers and their surrogates and dominions are constricting money supply and raising interest rates – inevitable recession inducing measures – and worsening an already explosive global social crisis. The obvious irony is that these measures, while appearing to reduce inflation, do not arrest the rising prices, especially of basic goods and services essential for maintaining life. These measures merely artificially shore up the wealth of the rich held in financial instruments.
In the current global economic circumstances, tightening monetary policy and raising interest rates simply further shrinks the global real economy and unleashes more social miseries on the world’s working class and rural poor populations. There are, therefore, the inevitable stirrings of the working class as they embark on strikes everywhere, from the US to the UK and throughout the EU, and elsewhere in the world, disrupting Christmas and New Year Celebrations. Inevitably, these economic and social crises must mutate into political protests, as the Tories in the UK now know, and therefore dread an early election.
Just before Hakainde Hichilema and his fellow African leaders were feted by the US President Joe Biden’s administration, the US House of representatives voted to spend almost a trillion dollars on the military: the highest US military spending ever, also in support of the US and its allies war against Russia in Ukraine and in preparations for the war with China. As soon as Hakainde Hichilema and his fellow African leaders were dismissed back to Africa, Biden and the US Congress feted Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine. These events are not a coincidence. They are well orchestrated and planned by the US to shore up its global support for its war in Ukraine and its preparations for war with China.
Both Democrats and Republicans in the House voted to spend $858 billion on the US military in 2023, some whooping $45 billion higher than President Joe Biden had requested and eight per cent higher than last year’s budget. US congressional lawmakers publicly discussed preparations for war with China, making very little effort at concealing this fact, during the congressional debates. It is obvious this massive historic military spend is meant to prop up the US strategic defence alliances and hard power, in its war in Ukraine and preparations for the war with China. It is in this climate that HH has been praised in the US as a “democrat” keeping China out of Africa. This US military spend of course now includes direct US arming of Taiwan, for the first time in history.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, has announced this month to the whole world that Russia’s modern weapons make up 91 per cent of Russia’s nuclear triad, and work continues on putting into service more of the latest weapons. Russia is heavily investing in new, sophisticated and unmatched advanced military weapons. Addressing the Russian defence ministry board in Moscow, Putin said the potential of all NATO countries is being used against Russia in the war in Ukraine. In the face of that threat, Russia “should maintain its armed forces at top combat readiness,’’ he insisted. Specifically, Putin announced that the rearmament of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces with hypersonic Avangard systems continues, the super-heavy Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) will be put into service in early January next year, and the Admiral Gorshkov class frigate will start combat duty carrying Zircon sea-based hypersonic missiles. Russia will invest in military drones, as these have become essential to modern military warfare. Russia and China have carried out joint naval military drills. Putin has boasted that Russia’s strength lies in the fact that it is one of the few countries in the world that is completely self-sufficient in the military domain and that it will continue to unlock this potential but will not repeat mistakes of the past and militarise its economy. It is very clear Russia is prepared for a long “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine; and world war. Russia boasts the world’s largest nuclear arsenal.
Xi Jinping, leader of China, and the Chinese Communist Party, have invested heavily in modernising their army, and there is no doubt they are fully aware of the plans of the US and its EU and NATO allies, to weaken and prevent it from overtaking them, keep Taiwan separate from China by all means including war, if need be. China is the “strategic adversary” and “main competitor” on the global stage, for the US and its allies; China’s expanding global power and reach must be curbed.
Virtually all of the EU member states are expanding and modernising their militaries and beefing up NATO. Major EU powers such as Germany and France are massively modernising both their militaries and nuclear arsenals. As for the UK, it is carrying out its traditional role as the most trusted colony and supporter of the US with much aplomb, zeal and enthusiasm like an unhinged supporter of a football club.
It is in this uncertain world with the fast declining global hegemony of the US, UK, EU and their NATO partners and the rising East and non-European world, that HH and the UPND are happily pawning Zambia’s natural wealth to their masters in the US, UK, EU and other Western surrogates, further entrenching us in our impoverished neo-colonial bondage, meanwhile using the dry bones of inevitable government jobs, CDF, and government increased funding to lower education to keep us cheering them on as they line their pockets with massive amounts of dollars, euros, pounds, yens and perhaps even some stray roubles.
While giving their foreign friends massive tax concessions and extremely favourable economic conditions to plunder our natural resources, Hakainde is making working class and poor rural Zambians pay for the debt his fellow petty and parasitic politicians incurred through drastic increases in fuel, electricity, food and other essentials. The sadism in this cruel transfer of the cost of paying Zambia’s debt into the pockets and homes of the working class and poor rural Zambians is only matched by HH and UPND arrogant offensive assertions that things could be worse, if the PF were in power, even as we know that life was cheaper under the PF, but the “economic indicators” were bad for our petty and criminal parasitic capitalist class, and their foreign masters.
There is hope for 2023 and going beyond. The decay and decline of the US, UK, EU and their NATO allies offers the best opportunity for all former colonies of these powers to win back their full economic and political freedom and to fashion their own genuine, independent social and economic development paths. The rise of the East offers hope for a new global order in which we too may have our true independence secured. Will we grab the opportunity? Best wishes for 2023!
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