If the world rotates and revolves, so too should history. Indeed, ‘history repeats’ may be the most abused of cliches, but the unfolding history of the world, though in many ways an encore of sorts, departs from the familiar textbook script in one important aspect: Reversal of roles. Call it ‘Reverse Colonialism’ or ‘Inverted Imperialism’, but if current trends are any indication, the mighty West, particularly Europe, that dominated and drove the wheels of time during much of the last few centuries, is slowly and steadily being pushed to the wall while those pushing it from grace and glory are the erstwhile colonies or the ‘Third world’. And make no mistake, the tortoises are winning while the hare are literally out of breath.
As poetic justice would have it, the eclipse of the imperial West is happening with the aid of the very tools it had employed to enslave other countries, namely, economic power and immigration. While those leading the economic charge are the Asian tigers like China, India, Hong Kong etc and the erstwhile eastern bloc and Soviet Union countries, the Asian and African immigrants ensconced firmly in much of Europe since colonial days are gnawing away from within. And worse, the third tool, military might, that the West has always used to subjugate the smaller nations, is now very much a weapon in the latter’s armoury too, what with several of those nations having gone nuclear and also in a position to afford modernisation of their forces. Militarily, the world today may be a very dangerous place, but it certainly looks better balanced on that count, than it appeared just a decade ago. The colonists who rarely faced any retaliation on their soil from their subject nations, may now get paid back in the same coin.
The onslaught by the so-called ‘Emerging Economies’, is the prime force behind the change of fortunes. There is now a rerun of the economic boom and the huge jump in world GDP that followed the industrial revolution, this time triggered by a technology revolution. But unlike the earlier one, the current boom is more broad based and global, though it is a long way from being dubbed equitable, what with great disparities in incomes and standards of living still staring up and stirring our collective consciences no end. Yet, the fact remains that more countries and more populations are active participants as well as beneficieries in this round of economic prosperity, with the third world outnumbering as well as outperforming the First. In fact, it is now official that the combined output of these emerging economies is more than half of the world’s. So much so, in a special report on the world economy in its recent issue, the magazine The Economist says that the balance of economic power in the world is changing. Unleashing an avalanche of statistics the report shows how ‘economic power is shifting away from the developed economies (basically North America, western Europe, Japan and Austral-asia) towards emerging ones, especially in Asia’. And it adds: ‘The once-poor world is scouring the earth for mineral rights, trying to buy Californian oil firms, accounting for ever more carbon emissions and making its weight felt in international negotiations on everything from trade to proliferation to the secretary-generalship of the United Nations.’
And to be sure, the West is certainly not relishing this reversal of roles. While the aforesaid report itself mentions some obvious signs of friction like the ‘uproar about jobs being outsourced to India and China’, third world businessmen unanimously talk about the open hostility, founded on racist tendencies, amidst their European counterparts as the major stumbling block in making inroads into Europe. But despite all that, these fortune seekers, mostly from the Orient, are succeeding, much to the collective ire of Europe, which has not just its riches at stake but must reckon with hurt pride too. Lakshmi Mittal’s eventual success after bloody boardroom manoeuvres and pitched political battles in his takeover of the European steel giant Arcelor is the most recent case in point. But more than lost jobs and takeover of some of their ‘jewel’ corporations, what haunts the Western establishments more is the spectre of political power too following suit. After all, in their material scheme of things, power is where money is. So if the trend continues, running the world may no longer be a white man’s burden!
Immigrants constitute the second line of attack on the West and its professed values. These powers, who had taken it upon themselves as a divine duty to civilise the world and free it from all pagan ills, are now all set to be enveloped by those very ‘vices’. The Asian and African immigrants who now form a huge chunk of the populations …and voters too, in many European countries presently influence State policy, consciously or by default. Unlike the first generation immigrants for whom Europe was just a greener pasture with no cultural or religious attachment, for the next generation it is a land of birth and as much their own. But with their social and economic status remaining uncomparable to that of the white sons of the soil, the immigrants are now getting more restive and assertive, politically and culturally. And Europe with all its ethnic pride on one side and the much trumpeted liberal ideas like free speech, democracy, secularism on the other is clearly caught in a Catch 22. After all, the widespread paranoia of Islam that has gripped the West does not gell well with secularism or human rights, while its promotion of freedom and democracy through bombs is blowing up on its face. And with terror outfits like Hamas, Hizbullah and what not lawfully getting elected, the war on terror may have to be fought across the negotiating table rather than in caves and deserts.
There are quite a few stark indications that the West is feeling the heat and even cracking under pressure. George Bush’s voice no longer carries the same conviction as it did in the aftermath of 9/11, much less carrying his countrymen along. The Bush brand of patriotism has lost its fizz. Still if he does decides to do an Iraq in Iran, he may well have to go to Teheran on horseback with a pistol in hand a la Clint Eastwood; And Bush may well attempt it. Britain, the great coloniser and civiliser par excellence, is scared to its toes and gets jittery to boot at the very sight of a beard. France is clueless on how to avoid a replay of the Paris riots when Muslim mobs systematically set fire to vehicles by night. And capping it all has come the Pope’s sudden wisdom on the violent proclivities of Islam. This after several clarion calls to Christian Europe to de-secularise itself and turn spiritual. The pontiff sees that as the only way to tackle the spread in his turf, of Islam which, according to him, derives its strength from its theology. The Papal refrain may henceforth run thus:If fate ordains Europe to be a colony, so be it; But let it be Vatican’s colony! Amen! Indeed, as Orient gets materialistic the West is turning more spiritual.
So as part of the ‘winning team’, what should we Indians be thinking of? After all history is what the victors deem it to be. So let’s start by calling our Ambassador to UK, …er … as … Viceroy!
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