The old world order (I)

It must be stated quite clearly right at the get go that the recently much touted new world order does not exist at this point in time. At best, it can only be said to be in the offing. Having said that however, one can go on to say confidently that in global terms, things ain't what they used to be. It can even be said that there are strong trends which are consistent with that era when the winds of change blew through Africa in the period after the Second World War. Those winds toppled the colonial empires which before the war had created their own world order that threatened to last forever, or so it seemed. Looking back however, it is clear that the dawn which followed those winds of change was a false one. The winds blew alright but in reality, the more things seemed to change, the more they remained the same or even became worse. At this point, one is reminded of the story of the man who was rid of some  pestilential spirits and for a while, became whole again. The spirits in the meantime roamed out of doors, suffering all kinds of deprivation. In an act of desperation, those now homeless spirits paid an exploratory visit to their old home which had been reset  to factory fittings and therefore sparkled with brightness. The spirits simply recolonised their old home to the very painful detriment of their host whose new state was described as being worse than the old. It can be seen from this story that a new order does not necessarily mean an improvement on the old one, unless of course, the spirits of the old order are completely exorcised, creating room for a brand new order. It is quite clear that at this point in time, conditions for the establishment of a new world order have not yet been established and we are still left with the old order on our hands.

It is not now debatable that an American order was imposed on the world immediately after the Second World War and that order subsists today, however shaky it now seems to be. It is no coincidence that all the institutions through which that order is controlled have their headquarters in New York or at least somewhere else on American soil. Once every year, all world leaders head to New York for the annual meeting of the United Nations but we all know that all the  decisions taken, if any are taken at all, are at the behest of the Americans. Furthermore, even at the Security Council, a crushing veto awaits any resolution that is not to the liking of the USA and her Western allies who hold a majority on that Council. In addition, the West enjoys the same strangle hold on trade and economic matters in general and award to themselves the leadership of what they call the free world even though that much vaunted freedom is to the detriment of the rest of us. It is nothing but a cheat code which works only in the interest of Western imperialist countries who have seized all available cards which they play as the spirit moves them. It can be seen from the above that there are formidable obstacles in the way of a new world order if only because the continued viability of the old world order is not yet in serious doubt.

We need not wonder why the old world order has been forced on the rest of us, the operative word here being force. At the end of WWII, the victors in that war were the USA and the USSR and they were separated by an ideological gulf so deep as to be unbridgeable. Consequently, the world was divided into two unequal but fiercely competing parts. The two parts competed for the hearts and minds of all the countries outside their respective sphere of influence especially in the emerging countries of Asia and Africa, mainly as the West occupied Western Germany and Japan and the USSR stationed their troops in the Eastern European countries which they had liberated from German occupation during the Second World War.The USA together with the old colonial powers of Britain, France, Belgium and Portugal in collaboration with the white supremacist regimes in South Africa and Rhodesia were interested in setting up their own order in Africa so that they could continue to exploit Africa as they had always done. The agenda was simply to devise the ways and means by which there was the transfer of industrial raw materials, from  the global South to the rich countries of the global West. This being the case, the Portuguese who were stubbornly interested in holding on to their African colonies received the unalloyed support of NATO forces as the arms which were used in the ensuing struggle against the liberation fighters operating in their colonies were supplied by that alliance. The USA and her allies were also on the side of white supremacist groups in southern Africa and right until the bitter end subverted every attempt to bring majority rule to South Africa. On the other hand, all the arms and logistic support which the liberation groups used to force the issue of freedom came from the Soviet Union and China with Cuba supplying troops at a critical point in Angola.