An International Community?

Eduardo del Buey
Foto: Reuters
La Jornada Maya

Martes 7 de mayo, 2019

Recently, a journalist friend of mine asked me if I believe that an “international community” exists.

I responded that, in my opinion, if we define a community as a group adhering completely to shared values and ideas, the concept of an “international community” has never truly existed.

Rather, the real “international community” is more like a community of communities, each with its own fundamental values, sometimes in agreement and, sometimes, in conflict, even at war, with other communities.

The world we knew, however, is changing as international political alliances are undergoing tectonic shifts that may take years to settle.

Globalization and technology are creating communities of like-minded people across borders. In some ways, these are new “cultures” that have little to do with geographical territory or national values and more to do with shared values and interests.

These new cultures, alliances and coalitions will continue to form and impact public opinion across geographic borders, as interests and values bring people together into communities increasingly more than national citizenship will.

Some of the impact will be positive and some negative.

Among the negative communities are those that focus on hatred and violence.

Indeed, while most westerners oppose it, the recent terrorist attack on New Zealand mosques by an Australian citizen indicates the emergence of a worldwide anti-Islamic network based on hatred and fear. As well, the vicious nature of Islamic terrorism, opposed by many Muslims around the world, precludes the existence of an “Islamic” community.

Another negative development, in my opinion, is the growth of extreme right-wing populist parties across Europe championed by former Trump advisor Steve Bannon that have helped achieve positions of power and influence in what once were liberal democratic European states. Bannon has copied the strategies and values that brought Donald Trump to power in 2016, and he is having some success exporting his recipe. To be sure, these countries have sections of their electorates who share a frustration at their social and economic situations, and their perceptions that, through migration, for example, they are losing their cultural identities.

So, while I don’t believe that there is an “international community”, I do believe that what we have instead are alliances based on narrow interests that shift over the course of time.

And today they are shifting faster than ever.

The “West” is increasingly divided.

The United States is withdrawing from multilateral organizations and President Trump’s disparaging public statements about NATO or outright withdrawal from alliances to which the US nominally belonged (such the Paris Climate Accords, and the Trans Pacific Partnership) is having a detrimental effect.

The “European Union” (EU) is also dividing after twenty years of progress towards continental integration.

Italy recently elected an extreme right-wing government that appears to be pursuing an increasingly pro-Russia policy much to the dismay of the EU. Hungary has been sanctioned by the EU because of its unwillingness to follow its rules on migration and freedom of expression. While migration is a complex issue that member states must work out, it remains a source of deep division as member states debate the values that brought them together.

BREXIT has left the concept of a united Europe in real doubt and ironically, the United Kingdom may well break up should Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland oppose the terms and consequences of the final breakup.

Spain has seen Catalan separatism challenge the constitutional order and fundamental unity of Spain. The recent elections appear to have weakened the strength of self-exiled Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont, who was protected by EU courts much to the dismay of many Spaniards.

The arrival of some twenty-three far-right VOX party members of parliament ushers in a new and uncertain era in Spanish politics. Now, Franquista apologists will be represented in Parliament for the first time since Spain’s transition to democracy. The far-right continues to emerge in Europe.

The “Islamic World” is another term that defies any sense of community. Indeed, Iran, the world’s Shia leader, is in a deadly proxy war with Sunni leading state Saudi Arabia in Yemen, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. In Syria, Shia Alawites are fighting Sunni opponents of the Assad regime with the tragic consequences of hundreds of thousands dead and millions of refugees.

Such divisions also exist in the Judeo-Christian world. One observes how the Christian Right and other Christians in the United States grow more deeply divided daily, and one struggles to find a sense of a “Christian community”.

The Catholic Church is not immune. Recently, Reuters reported that a group of Roman Catholic priests, academics, and intellectuals issued an open letter to bishops asking them to declare Pope Francis a heretic. The ultra-conservatives in the Roman Catholic hierarchy reject the Pope’s liberalizing trends and appear to be supporting former Pope Benedict’s more conservative positions on a variety of topics ranging from divorce to gay rights.

Polarization is also rife in the world of Judaism, as some American Jews call into question the course of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Israel with respect to a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, and also express concern about the predominant influence of ultra-religious Jewish parties on the government. These Jewish groups are accused, in turn, of being anti-Semitic by supporters of “Greater Israel”.

Latin America is currently divided into two major camps: countries that follow representative democracy and some form of economic capitalism, and those that follow more authoritarian and socialistic systems, and the Organization of American States (OAS) is deeply divided between those who support Venezuela and Nicaragua and those that don’t.

Tomorrow we will see how the world is dividing into various centers of power, and what we can expect.

Yesterday, we saw how many traditional alliances and groupings are falling victim to internal and external divisions.

So, today, we ask where does this leave us?

Torn between traditional liberal democratic values and the evolving ideologies of fear and hatred, with Russia and China doing their best to take advantage of the growing fissures in many regions of the world.

First, China’s ambitious “Belt and Road Initiative” is attracting some interest and allegiance. Italy has agreed to participate in this global multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure project. Peru and others in Latin America and the Caribbean have already signed on or are preparing to do so. Many African states are also willing participants.

This raises many questions: How will we refer to this new China-oriented grouping? How will non-participating African and Latin American states view their neighbors? Also, will the United States be able to respond in an effectively?

Finally, how will the Chinese political model influence global political and social thinking as people seek new ways to address globalization and its impact on the emotional psyche of the world’s population?

Secondly, just as NATO divided the Warsaw pact in the early 1990’s, Russia continues to try to divide NATO and appears to be making headway, especially with Turkey making a major Russian weapons purchase much to the chagrin of its erstwhile allies. How will Russian influence in eastern Europe and central Asia affect what were expected to be liberal democracies after the fall of the Soviet Union?

This new idea of capitalist oligarchies without democracy espoused by these two major international players poses a challenge to the traditional economic and political aspirations of many that include freedom of choice, expression, and political organization, strong democratic institutions, and the separation of powers aimed at ensuring that political and economic power is not concentrated in only a few hands.

Yet not is all negative.

Indeed, global networks of people bound together by a common ideology and values are replacing some traditional ties of common culture, language, and love of a geographical space that once described nationalism.

One sign that “Western” identity is not all lost is the recently created alliance between Canada, France, Germany, and Japan, bringing together disparate countries that stand in strong support of a multilateral system of global governance – “the community of communities”. The fact that the United States has been left out of this particular alliance speaks to current concerns that the perceptions of the US are changing globally, and not for the better. Can this can quickly change with a new administration in Washington? The jury is out.

Meanwhile, the global ecological movement and movements dedicated to fomenting respect for human rights, are not nation-based but rather issue and values-based.

We have also seen the impact of inspiring personalities such as Malala Yusufzai, the young Nobel prize winner who advocates education for girls and women everywhere and respect for human rights as a way to fight the spread of violence and oppression. She has developed a global network of followers and advocates that transcend national, linguistic, cultural, and ethnic boundaries.

Sixteen-year-old Swedish environmental advocate Greta Thunberg is also galvanizing many around the world in her determination to get governments everywhere to address the urgent need for effective environmental stewardship in the face of the effects of climate change and global warming.

So, where does this leave us as the century progresses?

The world underwent a fundamental alignment after World War II, and the resulting international order somehow prevented a global conflagration. To be honest, however, bloody wars have continued to cost tens of millions of lives throughout this period.

We will have to get used to the growing obsolescence of national borders as the backbone of “community” as our virtual reach overcomes our physical limitations. New cultures will arise in the wake of our technological revolution, and old ones will lose their force.

This is a new world.

As reality moves on, nomenclature is changing and traditional labels, mindsets and approaches may no longer work.

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