INTERVIEW
The West doesn’t have a project, we should build a platform of peace and solidarity
From April 18 to 21, hundreds of organizations and social movements from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia, the Middle East and Europe came together in Caracas, Venezuela, to discuss the problems, dangers, alternatives, struggles and most important issues that social organizations are facing today. In this framework, we had the opportunity to listen and learn from their collective experiences and from the great Indian intellectual Vijay Prashad, who gave us an overview of how the world is today and also the alternatives we have to confront what he calls “a decadent hyper-imperialism”.
Vijay Prashad and Venezuelan journalist Micaela Ovelar
Barbarism characterizes the world today: The Palestinian genocide
We live in a very barbaric world. It’s unimaginable, the barbarism that dominated the world today. The barbarism of apartheid Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian people. Now, 20 years ago, the barbarism of US imperialism against the Iraqi people, an illegal war, actually, a violation of the United Nations charter. Maybe 2 million people killed, displaced, injured. Not one Iraqi family was untouched by that war. Now, in Gaza, at least 300 families have been wiped out from history. 300 families their family names will not carry forward. That is the brutality of the Israeli bombing.
It’s actually quite stanning how brutal this bombing has been. It’s hard to explain to people who haven’t been into a war zone how ugly war is. War is loud. There’s a lot of noise. War in a modern period is ugly because a lot of toxic chemicals come out of buildings when they come down. And those chemicals poisoned generations of people. In Fallujah, In Ramadi, in Iraq, the United States used depleted uranium. Children are still born in Iraq with defects from that depleted uranium. That is the brutality, the barbarism of imperialism. That is the attitude of Monroism.
Monroism is barbaric. It’s brutal. Sometimes the word imperialism doesn’t capture emotionally how brutal imperialism actually is. How brutal, how barbaric, how inconsiderate it is towards the lives of ordinary people. 50,000 people have probably already been killed in Gaza. There are 7000 people missing, of them 5000 children. 15,000 children died in Gaza. A generation lost. That is the brutality, the callousness of imperialism.
The Israel’s war against Palestine and Iran
Well, Israel has been in the middle of a brutal genocidal war against the Palestinian people and people around the world have stood up to say Israel can’t do this to the Iranians. Some of those people, of course, have been the people of Iran, the people of other countries in the Middle East.
The Israelis, knowing that, attacked the Iranian embassy in Syria, in Damascus, and that’s the reason why Iran had to strike Israel militarily, because Israel first struck an Iranian embassy illegally in Syria.
I hope that the war between Israel doesn’t accelerate to include Syria and Iran in other countries, including Turkey, perhaps. I hope we are able to calm things down, have a cease fire, let the Palestinians recover. That’s the priority.
How to understand hyper-imperialism
We use the term hyper imperialism to capture some of that burtality of that barbarism. You see, the thing about hyper imperialism laid by the United States is that it is dangerous and it is decadent. It is both dangerous and decadent. I think it’s very important for us to recognize the danger and decadence of hyper imperialism. 75% of the share of global military spending is spent by the United States, its Nato allies, and its close Nato allies like Japan and South Korea.
75% of global military spending is spent by the United States and its allies.
I want you to think about that. When people say, well, China is a threat. When people say Russia is a threat. What are they talking about? China is a threat? That’s not a factual statement. China is responsible for 10% of world military spending. The United States and its allies are responsible for 75% of world militar spending. How is China a threat? How is Russia a threat? How is Venezuela threat? How is Cuba a threat?
The United States is the real threat
There is only one threat to the planet now, and that threat is hyper imperialism structure led by the United States and its close European allies. That’s the real threat. The only terrorist we have on the planet is the US government and its close allies, including Israel. That’s the terrorist. That’s the only terrorists. That’s the biggest threat to the planet that we face today.
But it’s worse than that. That’s dangerous, yes, but it’s worse than just being dangerous. It’s much worse than that. It’s also decadent. Look at the people who are leading the West: President Joe Biden (USA), Chancellor Olaf Scholz (Germany), Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (UK), President Emmanuel Macron (France), not one of these people has earned the respect of the people anywhere in the world. How is it possible that these countries with their immense wealth cannot produce even one intelligent world leader?
How is it possible that every single leader of the global North is mediocre? You see, it is no about Biden’s age. There are lots of people who are 80 years old, 90 years old, extremely lucid. It’s not about the age. It’s not about Donald Trump’s brutal manners. There are lots of brutal people in the world. They’re not all like Donald Trump.
It’s not about Olaf Scholz, who we don’t even see. When Olaf Scholz comes on a stage, it’s almost like he’s a shadow. He doesn’t even exist, at least, Angela Merkel has personality. Olaf Scholz doesn’t even have a personality. How is that France produced Emmanuel Macron? The country of the French Revolution. The country of the Paris Commune. The country of philosophers like Jean Paul Sartre.
Europe is not the solution either: They don’t have a project
Europe is not producing philosophers anymore. There is no Hegel in Germany today. There is no Sarte in France. There are no real intellectuals produced in the United States. The problem is in the age of Biden. The lack of personality of Schulz. The problem is that they don’t have a project. They don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t understand the dilemmas of humanity. They don’t understand how you need to transcend poverty.
They don’t understand what it means to have a real project to educate our children or helping the world. We saw the complete collapse of the global North during the COVID pandemic, but before the COVID pandemic, after the financial crisis of 2008, from which they have never recovered in that long term depression, we watched the global North struggle. With things like homelessness, with things like racism, homophobia and so on.
USA and Europe don’t have a project.
They don’t have any fresh ideas. In that sense, they are decadent. They’re not only dangerous, but they’re decadent. Hyper imperialism is dangerous. Yes. They don’t know how to build bridges anymore. They know how to blow them up. Hyper imperialism is dangerous, but it’s decadent as well. They can blow up the bridge. They don’t like building. They don’t have the money in public hands to build bridges. They don’t know how to build schools anymore. They don’t know what education is anymore. They don’t understand health care. The decadent aspect of hyper imperialism is very important for us.
It’s important for us because they are trying to convince the world because, they don’t have a project, that there’s no future. They’re trying to convince the world that what you have is what you have. What you have now is what you will have forever. Nothing can be improved. You should be lucky to have what you have now. Because it can get worse. They are decadent because they don’t have a future to offer for people.
Alternatives: Build a Platform of Peace and Solidarity
Those of us who believe in the people, those of us who believe in the possibility of a future, it’s not enough for us to just criticize imperialism. It’s not enough for us to just criticize the danger and decadence of the world leaders in the global North. It’s not enough to just criticize them.
We are very good at criticizing. We are the best anti-capitalist critics. We know how to say no. We know how to fight with them. We know how to say no to them. But if we want to build the biggest movement around the world, we have to have something through which people can say, yes, we need to have a project.
We need to have people build optimism. We need to be optimistic. I mean, you people to be optimistic not only for the future. But we need them to be all optimistic in our project. They need to believe that socialism is possible and necessary. It’s not enough to say another world is possible. We have to say socialism is necessary. Not only is socialism necessary, but socialism is possible.
It’s very important for people from around the world to come together on a platform of peace and a platform of development and reject war. We need to solve the problems of poverty, the problems of lack of education, problems of lack of health support. We need to solve those problems. We shouldn’t be wasting all our wealth on war. And that’s why it’s important for us to come together.
The Bolivarian Revolution and Hugo Chavez
Venezuela has been in the middle of a big struggle since 1998, when Hugo Chavez appeared to be a presidential candidate. Since that time, Venezuela has put a flag into the soil, insisting that the world can be different, that the problems we face now can be overcome. And so since 1998, Venezuela has been a place which has invited people from around the world to gather and think seriously about solving the world’s problems of the world.
