Amina Rahman questions the motives and methods of Globalisation and how it is a useful tool to maintain long-standing global inequality.

Globalisation refers to the interconnectedness of the world in which we experience a ‘space-time compression’. It explains how we can order a product off Amazon, which may be in warehouses from across the world, yet which can be delivered to your doorstop. The efficiency of the logistic chain is based on intricate communication networks between actors that enmesh the international realm. This is cited as the outcome of technological advancement, framing globalisation by reference to change and innovation. However, the characteristics defined as new are merely adaptive forms of imperialism. This shift in imperial order is accounted for by transnational institutions to act through indirect rather than direct rule.  This system of indirect rule is based on the expansion and sustenance of Western hegemony. Hardst and Negri (2001: xiii) outline how Empire persists but with new aspects to it, transforming it to be a phenomenon that has been deterritorialized and decentralized to pluralist and complicated connections. What is the role of International Organizations (IOs) within the United Nations (UN) in the system of indirect imperial order? These institutions unveil how globalisation is a façade for retaining Western hegemony and this is something that has historical roots, rather than being something completely new.

The UN emerged after the Second World War and pledged to ‘maintain international peace and security, developing friendly relations among states’. Although the preamble which declared the agenda had been mainly crafted by Jan Smuts, who identified as a white supremist and advocated the prolonging of empire (Mazower 2009:34), he used the UN as a smokescreen. On the outside he presented ideas of equality, justice and harmony but intended to use this international organisation to preserve Western imperial authority. The positive words mentioned in the preamble hold little to no real influence as they was always for show. This can be shown in the way he declares “for the human race” but then juxtaposes this by referring to the creation of a “civilised world”. The continuation of the colonial language of the ‘civilization mission’ expressed by colonial actors such as Cecil Rhodes, symbolises this continuum of distinguishing between the West and ‘the Rest’. It refers to those who do not associate with Western rhetoric as backwards and primitive.  Therefore, there is a need to ‘help’ these groups to become ‘civilised’, which is a euphemism employed for the forced management of marginal groups into subjects.

The ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) protocol is stated in the moral and humanitarian quest to ensure the protection of citizens whose governments are inadequate. R2P replicates the logic of colonial conquest, which equally advocated the need to ‘save the people’, justifying it by doing something for the ‘greater good’. One example is the response to the humanitarian crisis of Iraq (1995) by the implementation of the ‘Oil-for-food’ programme. This programme was set by the UN with the intention to prevent the “further degradation of public services” which has resulted from UN sanctions. The UN report emphasised the success of the project, so it appeared to be successful using emotive rhetoric. Nevertheless, the actions of the UN contradict what was set out in its agenda to do what is “necessary and appropriate” (UN 2005 summit paragraph 139). The UN used the desperate situation in Iraq to profit, in parallel to the extraction of resources in the colonial era. The UN rhetorically claimed the moral agenda in order to gain access to natural resources, this was seen all across Africa during colonialism and seen recently in Iraq.  This highlights how states are always depicted as self-seeking and focus on themselves over others. This self-interest is manifest in the ways powerful states act and use the UN as a human face of their imperialism.

The utopianised liberal depiction of international organisations (IOs) as neutral bodies is inaccurate, as, in reality, power relations are highly asymmetric. The Security Council’s permanent members (China, France, Russia, UK and US), dominate the UN by retaining the power to veto decisions made. The 2005 World Summit outcome paper in Paragraph 139 refers to “collective action” although this is juxtaposed with the reference to “through the Security Council”. This creates a distinctive binary of ‘us’ and ‘them’ which has been prevalent since colonialism.  Edward Said’s discussion of Orientalism shows how the difference between the colonisers and colonised remains deeply entrenched, except for those few nations who set the rules for the rest like the US. The permanent members are able to act freely without repercussions. One example is the illegal US intervention of Libya 2011: it was deemed as an improper use of Resolution 1973. The mission did not prioritise the protection of Libyan citizens symbolised through the use of aerial bombing, which caused mass civilian death. This was pursued despite President Gaddafi’s continuous offers of a ceasefire, reinforcing improper and personal pursuits. This portrays how the UN regulations can be ignored by the Western powers to do as they wish. The asymmetrical power dynamics have enabled the subordination and inferiority of the ‘other’.

The UN led the trend for the post-war establishment of the American-dominated international system which strove to regulate the world in the context of the Cold War, where the Soviet Union and its allies forged a counter-block. The International Monetary Fund was created in response to the Great Depression and was designed to stimulate monetary cooperation to fuel economic prosperity and reduce rates of inflation. Yet as the socialist critique has argued imperialism is intertwined with capitalism, and it is this economic agenda that encourages disparity between states. One of the biggest developments under globalisation is so-called interdependence, although the nature of these relationships is highly unequal, with Western powers protecting their economic advantages and weakening the chances of emergent competition from the Global South.  Samir Amin (2001) argues that globalisation is used to legitimise the “imperial capitalism”, he shows how ‘open market’ policies actually facilitate Western expansion. He highlights the continuity between contemporary globalisation and direct European colonialism in “the control of the expansion of markets, the looting of the earth’s natural resources, the super-exploitation of the labour reserves in the periphery”. This linearity highlights how colonial conquests were fuelled by economic means to access natural resources and accessing cheap labour through slavery. This is evident in the case of Africa, whose resource wealth has been diminished and populations exploited.

International Financial Institutions (IFIs) are significant to the economy of weaker states. This entrenched system is mobilised as a way of ensuring that the metropolitan elite (the colonisers) can exploit the periphery (the colonised) to maintain hegemony. Ex-colonies have been left with the poignant legacy of devalued currencies, high inflation and international debts (Williams 1994: 217). IFIs implement high rates of interest and states became increasingly vulnerable to market volatility. These institutions have triggered the debt crisis to occur because under Western backed loans interest increases, which made recipient states dependent on paying back loans by taking out more loans. They have become caught in a vicious cycle of dependence. Structural indebtedness allows the West to intervene in internal policy in the form of structural adjustment plans that include criteria of democratic integration in order to receive funds. This forces desperate states to conform to adhering to Western expectations, denying them the freedoms to create their own identity and agenda. The rhetoric of interconnectedness under globalisation is simply a means of reasserting indirect colonial relations. Neo-colonialism persists through these institutions which, while presented as neutral bodies, facilitate the hegemony of ‘the Great Powers’.

Overall, globalisation is not new, but an adaptation of previous modes of governance, and a perfecting of imperialism. The novelty of globalisation is perceived in the way Western countries have created institutions to act through, instead of directly. They have created a façade of equality, justice and peace as the central components to encourage global connectedness, but the relic of the past remains intact in their transparent intentions. They have shaped and moulded social, structural and economic discourse to maintain the unequal and unjust relationship instilled by colonisation. IOs like the UN and IFIs are used by the Western powers to their advantage, and their supposed neutrality is a pretence. It is a rigged system as can be seen by its overall unjust outcomes and it is a development from the older, direct European imperialism.

Amina Rahman is part of the Ayaan Institute’s Research Associate Programme. The programme provides training and mentoring in many areas for Associates and offers them the chance to write an article for publication through conducting their own research.

 

Bibliography

Antonio Negri and Hardt Michael. 2001. Empire. Harvard University Press

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Mazower, Mark. 2009. No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations. Princeton University Press

Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.

Samir Amin. 2001. “Imperialism and Globalisation”. Monthly review, 01 July 2001.