The Square in Bangkok

Ivo Rangelovic

I return to Bangkok, which always reminds me of the thesis that there are more beautiful worlds than reality. The advantage of nations embarking on the journey to multipolarity is that they no longer have a choice. Others are dreaming.

These days, the end of unipolarity or the world as we know it after the fall of the Soviet Union rings out like a mantra. As with any historical upheaval, numerous predictions about the future of humanity emerge, with an emphasis on the distribution of power between the great powers.

Samuel Huntington this time believes in "uni-multipolarity" including elements of both individual models, while Richard Haas offers the "unpolarized" order as the outline of a new order. A notable part of the world academy rests its beliefs on the potentials of multipolarity, which means a world characterized by more than two centers (states) of power and interest.

From today's point of view, it is very difficult to state that it is the war in Ukraine that is the historical turning point that will pour the glass of some kind of change. However, war seems to fit all our insecurities about order towards Nixon's theory that peace is only a state of fragile equilibrium in the life course of society. In the absence of a guarantee for relative peace, the world is already moving towards the prelude to a new strategic landmark.

There is none in Bangkok Square. That is the first information I learned about this city. Less strange to many of us, whose mindset is woven through Eurocentric conventions. The feeling is like Pangloss in Voltaire's Candide when he discovers that the real world may not be the best of all worlds. This is roughly how the deviation from unipolarity exists, heralding a world in which, in addition to cathedrals and shops along cobbled streets, there is also the possibility of no square.

The (un)judged constitution of Chile

In the draft version of the constitution of Chile, for example, there is no place for the ideas of Milton Friedman. It means goodbye to neoliberalism and to everything that is the institutional fruit of the Western system. In contrast, Chile offered a constitution scattered over a hundred pages that represents values ​​and without reading it - it was written by an equal number of women and men. In an attempt to sublimate the national as well as the human spirit, the constitution guarantees access to housing, food, health services, employment and clean air. Once again, clean air. Thanks to an entire chapter that states that "the environment has rights", animals are classified as subjects with special protection from the state. All animals.

More than 70 percent of the Chilean population voted in a plebiscite to change the constitution as a reflection of antagonism to the Pinochet era. The 62 percent who voted against the first version of the constitution, fueled by a conservative fabric in Chile that opposes the possibility of autonomy for regions with indigenous populations, is unlikely to stem the tide of multipolarity in the country. In any case, the changes in Chile are a striking example of the defiance of a uniform world.

The war in Ukraine

Something that is least talked about in relation to the war in Ukraine is the positioning of developing countries, in terms of taking a stand (more than a side). A total of 35 UN member states abstained from voting on the resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine, while 58 countries refused to vote on the resolution expelling Russia from the UN Human Rights Council. The reasons are abundant, but the basis is the saturation of the countries of the world with the problems of the West. All this, seasoned with the anti-imperial sentiment of South America, North Africa and East Asia, contributes to the reserve towards the dynamics of the current order. If we add to this that among the countries that refuse to support any side are India, Brazil, South Africa, Pakistan and formally China, the conclusion is that more than 80 percent of the world's population refuses to be part of the "Ukraine" problem.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of India emphasized in a statement that "Europe should stop thinking that the problems of Europe are also the problems of the world, and the problems of the world are not the problems of Europe." The world is already divided along a horizontal line along the length of the northern and southern hemispheres, not "East" and "West". The reason this time is not ideology, but the saturation of the worn out potentials of the unipolar world. The last time the countries of the Southern Hemisphere took sides, it meant a charter flight into chaos.

The monolingualism of double standards

Žižek is right when he says that in order to establish an order that guarantees peace, it is necessary for all stakeholders to speak the same language, especially when it comes to concepts such as freedom and occupation. Propaganda that both Russia and Ukraine are liberating cities across Ukraine is unacceptable. In that clash of truths, the conclusion is that Russia is occupying, as the US did through various interventions in the 20th century (Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Korea, Afghanistan, etc.). While Russia is doing it for the sake of territory, the US has been doing it in the name of ideology. In both cases, it is about occupation. In that context, Ukraine should not be compared with Israel (Zelensky's statements), because in such a comparison, Ukraine corresponds to Palestine, if it considers itself to be under occupation by Russia. Otherwise, the language of double standards will prevail even among the victims of the order itself.

Under the cover of such cases are also many other wars for which the world has conserved its passivity. The battles in Libya, the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, the situation in Yemen, the incidents between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, the cartel battles in Mexico, etc. On the European continent, however, another war of exceptional importance is being waged, and that is the war against migrants. In addition to inhumane treatment, violence, rape and starvation, there is a strong surge of indoctrination that these people are also a threat to the life and values ​​of this continent. On the other hand, there is a moral obligation to take care of refugees from Ukraine all over the European continent. Such a development undermines the core of the current order, and thus undoubtedly seals the fate of unipolarity.

I return to Bangkok, which always reminds me of the thesis that there are more beautiful worlds than reality. The advantage of nations embarking on the journey to multipolarity is that they no longer have a choice. The rest are dreaming.

The most prominent supporter of multipolarity was neither China, nor Russia, nor India, but the French intelligentsia. She dreams of a multipolar world from the time of Charles de Gaulle until the departure from power of Jacques Chirac. The truth is that the French state has never ventured into the niches of active change. The French pursuit of "grandeur" evaporated somewhere in the strategic conformity of official Paris.

Maybe that's why sometimes it's better not to have a square.

(The author is a political scientist)

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