Imperialism

How The Nation-State Created Our Global Survival Crisis

April 12, 2022 Patrick Mazza, Counter Punch. Create! Capitalism, climate crisis, Environment, Imperialism

The map of the world today is covered by splotches of color indicating the boundaries of nation-states. Though the world has had empires for over four millennia, the nation-state is a relatively new animal, beginning to gain form in Western Europe in the 1300s, and over following centuries rising to replace the city-states and multi-ethnic empires that preceded it. Originating in France and Britain, the nation-state became an engine to impose an unprecedented level of cultural and political uniformity on what had been a more diverse landscape. In doing so, it obscured the more fundamental reality of the region. Nation-states tend to be large abstract concepts, none more so than the United States, which was born of a set of concepts. But the foundations of every nation, its constituent elements, are vital places and regions.

After 60 Years Of Independence Algeria Remains A Center Of International Affairs

April 12, 2022 Abayomi Azikiwe, Popular Resistance. Educate! Algeria, colonization, Imperialism, Independence

In March 1962, after eight years of armed, diplomatic and mass struggles, the National Liberation Front (FLN) compelled the colonial leadership in Paris to commit to relinquishing its control to an Algerian Provisional Government (GPRA), overturning 132 years of French imperialist domination. The FLN and its allies were able to defeat the colonial regime in France setting an example for other states throughout the African continent who were then waging a revolutionary guerrilla war against settler-colonial and imperialist-backed European regimes. This victory against French imperialism was a Pan-African project bringing in newly independent governments such as Tunisia, Morocco, Ghana and Mali. Dr. Frantz Fanon, a Martinique-born French-trained psychiatric physician went to Algeria to work on behalf of the colonial regime when he shifted his allegiance to the FLN becoming an ambassador and contributing editor to a leading journal (El Moudjahid) allied with the national liberation movement.

NATO Sets Out Its Strategy For Even More Military Build-Up

April 3, 2022 Nick Clark, Socialist Worker. Educate! China, Imperialism, NATO, New Cold War, Russia

NATO sees Russia as a threat to US power—and has poured arms and soldiers into eastern Europe accordingly. That’s not the latest statement from the Stop the War Coalition—but the picture NATO paints itself in its annual report released on Thursday. The report gives an outline of what the US’s military alliance got up to in 2021 and spells out its aims for the years ahead. It all comes packaged in the language of “cooperation” and “security.” But once you strip out the guff, what the report really says is NATO's biggest concern is containing Russia and China. In his foreword to the report, NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg writes, “We have entered a new era in global security, where authoritarian powers, like Russia and China, are openly contesting core principles for our security, and seeking to re-write the entire international order on which our peace and prosperity depend.”

Imperialism And The Weaponization Of Empathy

March 24, 2022 Onyesonwu Chatoyer, Black Agenda Report. Strategize! Class Struggle, Immigrants, Imperialism, Joe Biden

Empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of other beings, is present in some form in most living things on Earth. Scientists theorize that empathy developed as an evolutionary strategy to build stronger bonds among animals that depend on cooperation for survival. In one particular kind of animal, humans, empathy is clear evidence that the claim spread by the ruling class, that each of us is fundamentally cruel, self-interested, and greedy is nothing more than an attempt to naturalize the individualism and antisocial behavior that best serves their exploitative interests. In its purest form empathy is a net positive for us on a planet where for the last several hundred years the genocidal system of capitalism-imperialism has normalized massive daily violence happening against a backdrop of apathy and ignorance.

Western Media Accuse China Of Wanting To Do What US Does To Other Countries

March 3, 2022 Gregory Shupak, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. Educate! China, Imperialism, Media, US Imperialism

Last month, the Washington Post (2/15/22) ran an opinion piece by David Von Drehle claiming that, “in a sense, the alliance of democracies” (by which he means the US and its partners) fell “into a fitful sleep” at the end of the Cold War. “What began as a happy dream of perpetual peace,” he contended, “changed in recent years to a nightmare,” featuring “Communist empire-building in China.” The notion that there was a “happy dream of perpetual peace at the end of the Cold War” that only recently became a nightmare because of international bad guys like China suggests that Von Drehle himself has been not merely snoozing but comatose. Just as the Cold War ended, the American empire killed thousands of civilians in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm (FAIR.org, 10/28/21).

For African And Colonized Peoples, To Understand Ukraine: De-Center Europe And Focus On Imperialism

March 1, 2022 Black Alliance for Peace. Educate! European Union (EU), Imperialism, NATO, Russia, Ukraine, Wars and Militarism

The Black Alliance for Peace emphatically declares that the conflict in the Ukraine emerges from the ceaseless and single-minded drive of the U.S., NATO, and the European Union for global economic and political dominance. The genesis of the current crisis, as BAP has previously asserted, is in the 2014 US-backed coup of Ukraine’s democratically elected government – and in the determination of the U.S./EU/NATO “axis of domination” to convert Ukraine into a heavily-militarized NATO member nation, lurking on the border of the Russian Federation. NATO’s expansion has been a well-known security concern for Russia since 1999, when Bill Clinton inaugurated the official process of growing NATO’s membership to include former nations of the Warsaw Pact.

NATO And Africa: Colonial Violence And Structural White Supremacy

February 24, 2022 Djibo Sobukwe, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Africa, AFRICOM, Imperialism, NATO, Wars and Militarism

Considering the public media attention and concern about possible expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), it is worth reminding people about NATO’s bloody history in Africa. NATO was founded in 1949 after WWII at a time when African countries were still under the yoke of colonialism. In fact most of the original founders of NATO had been Africa’s principal colonizers such as UK, France, Portugal, Belgium, Italy and the USA as lead NATO organizer and dominant partner. The organization was established as a collective defense against the Soviet Union with the requirement (Article 5) that any attack on one was considered an attack on all and therefore requiring a collective response.

Russian Training Exercises Bad, Facilitating British And US Imperialism Good

January 27, 2022 Gavin O'Reilly, Popular Resistance. Educate! Imperialism, Media, Russia, Ukraine

As the COVID-19 mainstream media narrative steadily disappears from news headlines around the world, following the highly coincidental timing of last week’s Davos Agenda virtual event held by the World Economic Forum, the corporate media has now, in lockstep, moved onto what many commentators predicted they would – an escalation in the current Ukraine crisis, in which Russia has been accused of planning an ‘imminent’ invasion of its smaller Western neighbour, with Kiev having come under the control the US-EU aligned governments of Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky since the 2014 CIA and MI6-orchestrated Euromaidan colour revolution was launched in response to then-President Viktor Yanukoych’s November 2013 decision to suspend a trade deal with Brussels in order to pursue closer ties with Moscow.

Why Poorer Nations Aren’t Falling For Green-Washed Imperialism

December 21, 2021 Prabir Purkayastha, Independent Media Institute. Educate! climate crisis, Environment, greenwashing, Imperialism

Fighting global warming is not just about providing a path to net-zero carbon emissions for all countries. It is also about figuring out how best to meet the energy needs of people across the world while working toward net-zero emissions. If fossil fuels have to be given up, which has now become an urgent need given the current environmental challenges, countries in Africa and a significant part of Asia, including India, need an alternate path for providing electricity to their people. What then is the best alternate course for poorer countries to follow for electricity production—if they do not use the fossil fuel route—that is being used by rich countries? This in turn also raises questions about how much this alternative energy source route will cost poorer countries, and who will pay the bills incurred when making the switch to this new source of energy.

The Age Of Imperialism Is Not Over

December 6, 2021 Jason Hickel, Current Affairs. Create! Capitalism, COP 26, Global South, Imperialism

As the failure of COP26 sinks in, it is increasingly clear that our leaders have neither the courage nor the will to respond effectively to ecological breakdown. This is not surprising. The ecological crisis is being driven by capitalist growth, which is tearing through the living world at a staggering pace, with the rich states and corporations of the global North responsible for the vast majority of the damage. Responding to this crisis will require deep changes to the structure and logic of the world economy, and existing incumbents are clearly unable to take the necessary steps. This leaves us with a series of haunting questions: What will the 21st century look like? How will the story unfold? What will happen in the future and how might we shape it?

The US Puts A Democratic Veneer On The Military Coup In Sudan

November 29, 2021 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Democracy, Imperialism, Military coup, Sudan

Since achieving independence in 1956, Sudan has had a number of military coup governments and popular revolutions that overthrew them. Most recently, the Sudanese people ousted the thirty year long dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir at the end of 2018 only to replace him with another military-led government and a civilian figure head. Clearing the FOG speaks with Ahmed Kaballo, a British-Sudanese journalist and producer who just released his two-part documentary called "Sudan's Unfinished Revolution," which you can find here and here. Kaballo describes the history of the struggle in Sudan, the dire situation facing Sudan right now and the powers behind the current government. He exposes the lies being told in the corporate media about the fight for democracy in Sudan.

The Imperial Legacy Of Climate Change

November 23, 2021 Larissa Kennedy, Tribune Magazine. Resist! climate crisis, COP 26, Imperialism, Youth Activism

The student movement is no stranger to protests and direct action. From marching against South African apartheid to fighting for justice for workers, students have a long history of daring to reimagine the world we want to live in and uncompromisingly working towards it. Perhaps it is unsurprising then that students and young people are once more at the forefront of a campaign—one fighting for climate justice and our very ability to exist. For several decades we have been told that our individual actions alone can reverse the climate crisis. The truth is paper straws and bags for life cannot compensate for decades of missed COP targets, government inaction, and the wealthiest 1%—predominantly in the Global North—producing double the emissions of half our global population combined. We urgently need systemic change.

Africa’s Uprising Is Frozen, Its Cry Swollen With Hope

September 3, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Africa, colonization, Human Rights, Imperialism

On 26 August, two deadly attacks on the perimeter of Kabul’s international airport killed over a hundred people, including a dozen US soldiers. The bombings struck people desperate to enter the airport and flee Afghanistan. Not long afterwards, the Islamic State of Khorasan (IS-K) took credit for the attack. Ten days before this attack, Taliban fighters had entered Kabul’s Pul-i-Charkhi prison and executed the IS-K leader Abu Umar Khorasani, also known as Zia ul Haq. Two days before his execution, as the Taliban advanced into Kabul, Abu Umar told the Wall Street Journal, ‘They will let me free if they are good Muslims’. Instead, the Taliban killed him and eight other IS-K leaders. Since its formation in October 2014, IS-K, which operates in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has conducted over 350 attacks against Afghan, Pakistani, and US targets in these countries.

The Blood Never Dries

August 29, 2021 Richard Gott, Red Pepper. Educate! Britain, British Empire, Genocide, Imperialism

Twenty years ago, when Tony Blair tried to restore something of the old militarism of empire, invading Afghanistan and Iraq with little understanding of what had once happened there, he did so with the words and music of ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ echoing through his speeches. In like manner, the work of Niall Ferguson (Empire: How Britain made the Modern World, 2004) sought to revive the old imperial dream, and, for a moment, it seemed as though what was called ‘humanitarian intervention’ was going to usher in a new imperial era. Other distinguished historians were there to provide support: Lawrence Friedman, Andrew Roberts, Max Hastings – quite a cohort of armchair imperialists enjoyed a spring offensive.

Afghanistan, The Great Game Of Smashing Countries

August 25, 2021 John Pilger, Mintpress News. Educate! Afghanistan, Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

More than a generation ago, Afghanistan won its freedom, which the United States, Britain and their “allies” destroyed. When we watch the current scenes of panic at Kabul airport, and listen to journalists and generals in distant TV studios bewailing the withdrawal of “our protection”, isn’t it time to heed the truth of the past so that all this suffering never happens again?

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

Daily movement news and resources