Seven Glimpses of the Multipolar World

The Monster of Nationalism in the NATO West

Mar 03, 2023

This week an essay by Nobel Prize winner, Rabindranath Tagore, on Nationalism and an intervention by President of Malaysia prompted thoughts on the life of the mind after Western Democracy.

In the Burning Archive weekly newsletter I share seven glimpses for seven days into the history, culture and diplomacy of the emerging multipolar world.

Thanks for checking it out. I follow the same format each week to share my work to make sense of our time of troubles.

Gratitude

First, I am grateful to the State Library of Victoria, where I spent a few hours this week deepening my knowledge of Indian history.

What I am reading

I have been reading an important, lengthy assessment of the military position in Ukraine by Big Serge, also on our shared platform of SubStack. Big Serge is among the most intelligent of the observers of the military situation, and this piece goes into depth about the battles in Ugledar, Bakhmut and Kremenenya. It is full of detail and insights, and changed my mind about what is happening there right now and how it might unfold.

Big Serge Thought

Russo-Ukrainian War: Schrodinger’s Offensive

Where is the big Russian offensive? This is, at the moment, the million dollar question that inevitably intrudes on any discussion of the war’s current course. It is probably not surprising (to those of us that are familiar with human nature, at least) that this question becomes a Rorschach test in which everybody sees their own …

2 years ago · 226 likes · 59 comments · Big Serge

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Governing the unruly multipolar world

As I prepare this newsletter, the outcomes of the G20 Foreign Ministers Meeting are coming through. India’s approach to its presidency of the G20 in 2023 has been to act as the Voice of the Global South. I did a video on this strategy and its appeal and intelligence here.

But the USA and its allies want to turn the G20 into another Western media stunt. They demand a rebuke of Russia in the communique or they will stamp their feet and refuse to sign the paper. Western dipolmacy has withered in the echo chamber of the virtual reality state.

But India gracefully has continued in its course. Prime Minister Modi delivered a video message to the assembled Foreign Ministers on the eve of their meeting. He reminded them that despite their differences on some issues, there was a greater responsibility on states to act together to improve the lot of humanity on common challenges. Modi warned the Foreign Ministers, “the G20 has capacity to build consensus and deliver concrete results. We should not allow issues that we cannot resolve together to come in the way of those we can.” Wise words.

More deeply still, Modi reinforced the growing view that the institutions of the post-1945 American dominated world no longer work for the world. His brief speech said:

We must all acknowledge that multilateralism is in crisis today. The architecture of global governance, created after the Second World War, was to serve two functions. First, to prevent future wars by balancing competing interests. Second, to foster international cooperation on issues of common interests.
The experience of the last few years – financial crisis, climate change, pandemic, terrorism, and wars – clearly shows that global governance has failed in both its mandates. We must also admit that the tragic consequences of this failure are being faced most of all by the developing countries. After years of progress, we are at risk today of moving back on the Sustainable Development Goals. Many developing countries are struggling with unsustainable debt, while trying to ensure food and energy security for their people. They are also the ones most affected by global warming caused by richer countries. This is why India’s G20 Presidency has tried to give a voice to the Global South.

Then he directly challenged how America was running the world today: “No group can claim global leadership without listening to those most affected by its decisions.” I hope the reality of Indian (and Chinese, Russian, Latin American, African and Central Asian) diplomacy ultimately prevails over the pantomime stunts of the Western virtual reality state.

Using history to live mindfully in the present.

Mahatir Mohammed, 97-year old former President of Malaysia, tweeted on the real history of events leading to the Ukraine War. The problem is European and American leaders clinging to their exceptional status in the world. Ultimately, the world will need to get beyond American leadership. There is little I can do in my own life to affect the outcome of this struggle, except to observe mindfully the passage of historical events and not be seduced into deceptive narratives. Mahatir faced mindfully the difficult reality that historical events sometimes present us with. I encourage all readers to read his full thread.

Dr Mahathir Mohamad @chedetofficial

WORLD WAR III 1. I hesitate to write this article. I may be accused of apologising for the Russians. I am not. I think the present war between Ukraine and Russia is caused by the Europeans’ love of War, of hegemony, of dominance.

Fragments from the Burning Archive

I read an essay by Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali literary giant who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. Tagore was the first non-Westerner to win the Nobel Prize. The British conferred a knighthood on its colonial subject, but Tagore later returned the title in protest at the actions of the British Empire.

The essay was ‘Nationalism’, published in 1917. It is a scathing denunciation of the war of Western nations who controlled empires that raged in Europe at that time. Tagore wrote:

“the idea of the Nation is one of the most powerful anesthetics that man has invented. Under the influence of its fumes the whole people can carry out its systematic program of the most virulent self-seeking without being in the least aware of its moral perversion, - in fact feeling dangerously resentful if it is pointed out.”

This essay spoke to today’s situation in Ukraine where the new Nationalism of the West has been unleashed in the last American Crusade.

“The veil has been raised, and in this frightful War the West has stood face to face with her own creation, to which she had offered her soul. She must know what it truly is.
She had never let herself suspect what slow decay and decomposition were secretly going on in her moral nature, which often broke out in doctrines of skepticism, but still oftener and in still more dangerously subtle manner showed itself in her unconsciousness of the mutilation and insult that she had been inflicting upon a vast part of the world. Now she must know the truth nearer home.”

To evade the monster, the people of the world, Tagore thought would need to take refuge in individuality, culture and the wisdom traditions of the world. He spurned narrow patriotic nationalism, and found gratitude in all the expressions of human culture.

"Whatever we understand and enjoy in human products instantly becomes ours, wherever they might have their origin. I am proud of my humanity when I can acknowledge the poets and artists of otehr countries as my own. Let me feel with unalloyed gladness that all the great glories of man are mine. Therfore it hurts me deeply when the cry of rejection rings loud against the West in my country with the clamour that Western education can only injure us."
(Tagore, quoted Sen, The Argumentative Indian, p. 119)

It is a profound insight for today, when some in the declining West seek a true dignified life of the mind after Western democracy.

What surprised me most this week.

There was a video distributed on Twitter of some Americans being interviewed and asked to name three countries in the world. They could not. They answered ‘London’, ‘Asia’ and so on. There was also a statistic that a very high propotion (maybe it was 75 per cent?) do not have passports. It is deeply surprising how this insular, ignorant and complacent country can seek to command the ‘liberal international rules-based order’. No, it seeks to exploit the American Fools Based World Order.

Works-in-progress and published content

This week my works in progress and published content were:

on the podcast I published Episode 89. Is Democracy Losing the War in Ukraine?
On the YouTube Channel I published videos:
- The West’s Grand Illusions in Ukraine
- How to avoid a war between China and the USA? Read Mitter, Forgotten Ally: China's Second World War
- History of China in a Weekend. Jaivin’s Shortest History of China , and
- A short with an excerpt from from podcast, Is Democracy Losing the War in Ukraine?
I prepared course materials for my online courses on mindful history and writing in government. I will have more news in the newsletter on these courses in a month or so.
I edited some more of Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Bureaucrat, and drafted some of my book on life after Western democracy. I might share some excerpts in a subscriber-only newsletter soon.
I continued preparing transcripts of my podcasts over the last twelve months on the Russia-Ukraine-NATO War for publication.
And I did a bit of tweeting, especially about a series of articles by Burchill, Mahbubani, Walt and others on the unravelling of the Western narrative of victory in Ukraine.

Let me know if there are issues or topics you would like me to talk about on the podcast or the YouTube channel.

Burning Archive

Seven Glimpses of the Multipolar World

The Monster of Nationalism in the NATO West

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