Do we allow for the promotion of neo-colonialism and imperialism, or do we join the forces of anti-imperialism?
Recent events – namely the abduction of Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores by the US, the US-backed Israeli war against Iran, the unjust blockade of fuel shipments to Cuba, and of course, the Israeli war against Gaza with full US backing – have all served to confirm the reality of imperialism in our contemporary lives.
If Western imperialism once took the form of direct colonial rule following the European conquest of the Americas from the late 15th century to the mid-20th century, today it operates indirectly through the economic, political and cultural control of the global majority via persuasion, intimidation, threats and intervention.
Despite the vast majority of the world having undergone formal decolonisation, we are still subject to domination, particularly by the US, in the form of economic controls or political coercion. This is what former Indonesian president Sukarno referred to as neocolonialism at the Asian-African Conference of 1955, also known as the Bandung Conference.
Recently, two chief diplomats – US secretary of state Marco Rubio and Iranian foreign minister Seyyed Abbas Araghchi – spoke at separate international forums. Their speeches reflected two widely differing visions of how the world should be. One was a grotesque display of the imperialist impulse while the other was a plea for international order, respect and peace.
Araghchi spoke in the context of the Israeli colonisation of Palestine, but he could just as well have been speaking about Venezuela or Iran. What the Iranian diplomat was calling for was the decolonisation and deimperialisation of the world.
This comes at a time when the US is working to consolidate imperialism and re-westernise the world. This brings us to Rubio’s speech delivered at the Munich Security Conference, one week after Araghchi spoke in Doha.
Remember that Rubio was addressing the Europeans. In the early part of his address, Rubio glorified the founding of America, never once referring to the genocide that the European “discoverers” perpetrated against the natives. Instead, he referred to the Christian faith as a sacred inheritance brought from Europe by those who settled in what they called the “New World”, but which was known to the indigenous natives as Abya Yala.
“We are part of one civilisation – Western civilisation. We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilisation to which we have fallen heir,” said Rubio.
Rubio went on to recount the great scientific and cultural achievements of Western civilisation, without making any reference to the significant contributions of the Chinese, Indians and Muslims to the making of the modern West, not to mention Europeans and the American racism, misogyny, slavery and colonialism on which the modernisation and industrialisation of the West were founded.
Not only was Rubio’s speech completely devoid of a multiculturalist sensibility, it secreted xenophobia. He lamented “opening our doors to an unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies, the continuity of our culture and the future of our people”. He glorified the bombing of Iran in June 2025 as well as the abduction of Venezuela’s president and first lady.
Bemoaning the anti-colonial movements that contributed to the decline of the Western empires, Rubio called for the renewal and restoration of Western civilisation to “build a new Western century”. He noted that for five centuries, Western civilisation had expanded through the work of its missionaries and soldiers, and settled continents and established empires. But, the West began to contract from 1945.
Rubio told the audience in Munich that president Donald Trump and the US wanted to work with Europe to return to the Western age of dominance. For us in Asia, Africa and Latin America, this would be read as the will to re-westernise us – that is, to reimpose the Western mode of modernity on us.
The spirit that Rubio wishes to ignite among the Europeans, one that “sent ships out into uncharted seas and birthed our civilisation”, is decidedly imperialist. We fear that the recent US initiatives in Gaza, Venezuela and Iran are the workings of that spirit.
The reassertion of the West’s superiority and expression of the will to renew its dominant, imperialist role in the world is likely a reflection of perceived weakness and fear of becoming a “faint and feeble echo” of their past, as Rubio put it. It is something that the third world, global majority and the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America must be wary of and guard against.
The anti-imperialist impulse has always been there, but has alarmed the West due to certain changes and movements that have arisen in recent years. These include the rise of BRICS and the idea of dedollarisation, regional realignments in the African Sahel that reject French and US control, the consolidation of ties among socialist states such as China, North Korea and Russia to counter Western dominance, and the Latin American pink tide – that is, the wave of leftist political movements and governments that emerged there since the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Iran’s steadfast anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist stance and its firm opposition to US interference in the affairs of West Asian nations is a part of global anti-imperialism.
The West, as led by the US, is therefore a declining hegemonic power. This is not just an objective reality but also perceived to be the case by all, including those in the West. While on the decline, the West will fight to regain its glory and, in the process, be reckless and bloody due to fear and rising insecurity.
We in Asia, Africa and Latin America – our citizens, civil society movements and governments – must decide on what side of history to stand. Do we allow for the erosion of international law and sovereignty and the promotion of neo-colonialism and imperialism, through active participation in that process or complicity via silence, or do we join the forces of anti-imperialism? The time is coming for us to consider these choices. - FMT
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.
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