The Age of Neo-Imperialism: Essays on Contemporary Global History

By Henry Dsouza

The title is derived from a study of hotspots around the world from October 2013. In Africa, the countries covered are South Africa, South Sudan, Tunisia, Egypt, and Palestine.
In the European arena, the main focus is on Ukraine, and the impact of two world powers on Eastern Europe.
President Obamas Speech to West Point recruits yields some ideas on foreign policy. So does the document on US-Africa commercial agreement for the future. The book also includes some discussion on the USs Pivot to Asia. Together these policies point to what some visualize as a New World Order.
By 2010, a unipolar world has changed into a multi-polar one, which stresses the need to democratize international institutions for global stability.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496954510

Henry Dsouza

Henry D’ Souza was a Senior Lecturer at the University of Nairobi and Kenyatta University. He specialized in education, but in retirement has focused on Global Contemporary History-an innovative way of looking at history. He wrote three other books that covered the Bush-Obama eras: World War III or Islamic Liberation? Must Obama Go? Over-Armed World, Under- funded Peace?

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2014 Henry Dsouza. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/11/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-5452-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-5451-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014920637

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Contents

INTRODUCTION

1 Shutdown!

2 No Woman, No Drive

3 China’s Policy for the Next Decade

4 Madiba: R.I.P. or L.L.L.?

5 South Sudan: New Country, Ancient Gripes

6 Central African Republic & The Shatter Belt of Africa

7 Tunisia’s Constitution: A Model for M.E.N.A.?

8 EU: Towards A Banking Union

9 Ukraine’s Split Personality

10 Sport & Politics: Sochi

11 The Battle of Shirts in Thailand

12 Is Venezuela, Ukraine?

13 Crimean Fall Out, 2014

14 The Age of Neo-Imperialism

15 ‘Putinism’ & Russia’s Near Abroad

16 Is Al-Sisi Going the Musharraf Way?

17 2014, West Point Speech: All Hat And No Cattle?

18 Novus Ordo Seclorum

19 1000 Osamas in Iraq

20 A 2014 Islamic State

21 Political Boomerang: Ukraine & Palestine as Case Studies

22 US–Africa Business Partnership

23 World Domination

To

My dearest friend, the late Professor Ali. A. Mazrui.

He was Albert Schweitzer Professor in Humanities, SUNY, at Binghamton, USA,

Director of its Institute of Global Cultural Studies, Albert Lithuli Professor-at-large at the University of Jos, Nigeria,

And, Andrew White Professor-at-Large Emeritus and Senior Scholar in African Studies.

At Makerere University, he put UGANDA on the world map;

As a Professor in the US, he introduced Africa to international scholars;

And in Kenya, his home country, he became the Vice Chancellor of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.

As a scholar in Muslim studies, he had access to royalty in the Middle East and North Africa.

Noble Mazrui came from a royal family at the Kenya Coast. At his funeral, he was treated as an icon.

INTRODUCTION

The Age of Neo-Imperialism is the fourth book in a series that covers global hot spots, from 2001 to 2014, in order to find answers to the burning question of the day: why is the world becoming increasingly unstable and dangerous?

The other three books are: World War III or Islamic Liberation? Must Obama Go? And, Over-Armed World, Under-funded Peace? The first title are the impressions of President George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden. Incidentally, the Bush and Bin Laden families were business partners. The second title was a feeling of a philanthropist who donated a million dollars to President Obama’s campaign. The third was an observation of the current UN Secretary General’s impression from his desk.

Contemporary global history is innovative, but just one way of deriving instant historical conclusions.

Francis Fukuyama wrote about the End of History & the Last Man. He saw liberal capitalist democracy as the best solution to political development. But the title gives the impression that history has an end when it does not. Some aspects of liberalism may be found among primitive tribes. And capitalism and democracy have a variety of interpretations. History is not just political; every discipline has its history. For example, a scientist studies the history of a cell or virus, while most artists have to imbibe, directly or indirectly, the history of art.

Big History is another view of history. It attempts to capture briefly the history of the universe from the Big Bang to human development on the Blue Planet. Australian Professor David Christian suggests dividing this progress in 8 thresholds, some of which are: from the Big bang to Homo-Sapiens; the appearance of the Agricultural threshold; and, forces that gave birth to a modern world. Another historian suggests thinking in terms of scales of time and space. ‘Big History’ has been introduced in 1,200 schools in the US.

If one delves more deeply into origins, Marcus Eduardo de Oliveira, Professor of Economics at FAC-PHYTO, suggests that we learn to appreciate that we are the earth in its fullness. We are made up of 20 amino acids and 4 nucleic acids (adnine, guarine, thymine, and cystosine.) Of the 92 chemical elements existing in nature, 17 regulate the process of life. Showing the close relationship between Man, all living organisms and the environment adds to the various dimensions of history.

Currently, more often than not, only political history is taught. But since politics is concentrated economics, history should integrate, politics with economic history, military history, and other more relevant aspects of culture.

Since the study of the Bush-Obama period led to the importance of money and how it is used indirectly in the politics of control and subjugation, facts led to the conclusion that this was an Age of Neo-Imperialism.

There is another thread that historians neglect at their peril: the important dynamics of ethnic, national and international cultures. Normally international culture dominates national and the latter dominates ethnic. To give just one example, Supreme Court decisions in the US supersede those of smaller national courts. And the International Criminal Court should be superior to the Supreme Court but the US contests this hierarchy. But this study of Neo-Imperialism found that ethnic groups control international institutions, hence the imbalance in global order.

Hopefully, the book will generate a lot of discussion. It should be remembered that a historian is an interpreter of events on the ground. He does not make history. Nor should history be intentionally prescriptive.

The author would like to thank the search engines, particularly Google, and national online newspapers for bringing international libraries to the home. AuthorHouse has to be thanked for offering to publish the book. The target population is global university students.

Henry D’ Souza

October 20, 2014

1

SHUTDOWN!

For sixteen days, from October 1, to October 16, 2013, the political world stood still as the US went through a temporary shutdown, and the $30 billion in its kitty was not enough to pay its bills. Normally, the President would have taken unilateral action and raised the debt ceiling which had reached $16.7 trillion, but the Republicans threatened to impeach him if he did not seek approval from Congress.

Federal Bills due, October-November 1, 2013

Finally, after much haggling at the eleventh hour, it was agreed to kick the can down the road: Congress agreed to fund the government until January 15, 2014, and to raise the debt ceiling until February 7. In the Senate, the bill was passed 81 to 18, and in the Lower House, 285 to 144. By passing this bill, Republicans had to ignore their own unwritten Hastert Rule, which stipulated that only bills with a support of the majority of the Republican caucus could be brought to the floor. Thirty-eight percent of 2.1 million federal workers who had been furloughed were happy to get back to work.

President Obama said that this shutdown was completely unnecessary. Eighty-six percent of those polled said that Americans were completely fed up with Congress. A 26-year veteran of the Senate John McCain said that this was the more shameful things seen as a senator, although he had experienced nine shutdowns.

Senate leaders, like Harry Reid, however, tried to play down the heated atmosphere by emphasizing that there were no winners or losers.

Several inter-related questions emerge from this temporary shutdown: why were Republicans blamed for this episode, in particular the Tea Party; why did intelligent representatives have to indulge in puerile escapades; was the temporary shutdown necessary; and, what were the consequences of this event?

The right wing Republican leaders in the Tea Party, like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Tom Coburn and David Vitter, had a genuine reason for complaining about the debt ceiling. By January 2014, the debt ceiling would be increased to $17 trillion. In five years the figure would be $23 trillion, and by the calculations of Boston University professor Kotlikoff the unsustainable debt would catapult to $205 trillion in the 2020s.¹

One way of paying off national debt is by increasing taxes, but after President Obama’s prompting, taxes yielding $840 billion had been raised in January of 2013. Republicans are normally averse to raising taxes and they would not support any more tax increases. Neither would most Democrats.

Both parties were responsible for this debt. In the last sixty years, both parties have been creating deficits for 55 years, which have accumulated. And strangely, both parties use the debt issue to create a rumpus in Congress, with the result that there have been eighteen shutdowns. Tom Murse² offers these observations of shutdowns:

US Government Shutdowns

Republican leaders say categorically that there will not be a shutdown in January of next year and Senator Schumer said that he would introduce a bill to increase the debt automatically without Congressional approval. Shutdowns serve no useful purpose; it merely shows the obvious, the failure of governance.

The leader of the Tea Party protest, Ted Cruz, ⁴ had to cave in because he targeted the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the 2010 healthcare reform bill, which was derisively called Obamacare. Obamacare had been passed by Congress, withstood several court cases over its legality, and even cleared the Supreme Court. There was no chance that the Tea party could kill, or tamper with the bill, legally.

ACA was popular for several reasons. The bill did not stop applicants from being insured under the old system where operations were split between the government and private system: 62% of the hospitals were non-profit; 20% government-owned; and 18% were for- profit.³

But the new system sought to help those that were not covered by any insurance: it was estimated that 48m., or 15.4% of the population would benefit from Obamacare.

For those who cannot afford, there were premium tax credits for those earning less than $45,960 or $94,200 for a family of four.

For those who can afford health coverage, it is obligatory to enroll in 2014 or pay a monthly fee of $95 per adult ($47.50 per child) or 1% of an income, whichever is higher. The maximum a family would pay monthly would be $285. This individual mandate was very controversial; many wanted it optional, but the insurance companies felt that if everyone were insured, the costs could be kept low. Young, healthy people would in effect be subsidizing older folks. Youths under the age of 26 could be on the family plan. Before, insurance would be denied if there were pre-existing conditions; under the new plan denial is forbidden. Democrats wanted a state plan, but the Republicans successfully backed private exchanges.

The Federal Government would still run separately its Medicare program primarily for seniors, most of whom, paid into its trust fund. Medicare is not tied to income.

Medicaid is another program that is sponsored by federal, state and local authorities for low income families. Patients do not pay any part of the costs for medical expenses. The quality of service, under Medicaid, naturally varies from state to state.

Part of Obamacare is already in effect, but some of it will be operational in 2022. Insurance plans are graded. Obamacare is based on 9 pillars: pre-existing conditions; standard premium; minimum standards; individual mandate; employer mandate; government subsidies; health insurance exchanges; medical eligibility; and, Medicare reimbursements.

The net cost of Obamacare by 2023 is expected to be between $1 trillion and $2.6trillion. After cost assistance, the cost per individual is likely to be between 3% and 9.5% of income. Despite initial glitches regarding enrolment, Kentucky had 10,766 applications and 2,989 enrolled on the first day. In Washington D.C. 35,528 successfully enrolled on the first day. It would not be surprising if it were found that some interest groups tried to torpedo Obamacare in its infancy.

The temporary shutdown had ripple effects internally and externally.

Though Ted Cruz agreed that he had lost the fight to link a reduction of national expenditure to Obamacare, he said that it was a victory for him, and that more aggressive actions are still to come. He has been emboldened by the fact that Tea Party members in the House are more than half of the 231-Republican caucus, and that they are backed by powerful interests who cherish conservative values.⁵

By moving right of the Republican platform, the party is losing the support of Latinos and the financially weak. Michael Lougenmayr of dailykos.com points out that gubernatorial, anti-Obama, candidate Ken Cuscinelli is down in the polls and he is taking the party with him. Lougenmayr predicts that Virginia could see huge Democratic gains. The shutdown added to the destruction of the Republican brand.⁶ The Republican Party has to re-invent itself just as it did, for a time, after Romney lost the Presidential election in 2012.

The fact that Cruz thought that he had won, shows that he had lost sight of the fact that Congress has to serve the nation, not his interests or that of his party. Dailykos.com also quoted a Time report that Cruz had to change his disclosure to the Senate three times with regard to his investment in a Caribbean-based holding company during the 2012 elections. Senator Cruz may have violated Senate ethics rules.⁷

Another odd observation was that Kuzmanick, a founder of the Tea Party in Oregon, has not made a mortgage payment to federally-funded Fannie Mae for over three years, and the process servers cannot find him.⁸ Public servants should be measured according to the highest ethical standards: they should not display even a whiff of corruption.

Vyan⁹ reports that the die-hard Tea Party members are coming out of the closet. South Carolina’s Governor Glenn McConnell, Virginia’s Bob McDonnell, and Texan Rick Perry espouse the traditional values of the Deep South: whites crafted the US and are therefore superior and entitled to equal civil and political rights; the blacks, and by extension the coloreds, are inferior, and their subjugation is to their mutual benefit. This form of apartheid is celebrated by McDonnell on Confederate Day, while Perry thinks of himself as a Confederate Avenger.

Republican Pete Sessions of Texas took freedom so far that he failed to show the necessity for responsibility and decorum, when he told President Obama to his face that, I cannot even stand to look at you.¹⁰

Glen Beck has become the spokesman for these dogmatic right- wingers. Beck has accused an established Republican Grover Norquist of being an Islamist and equating Islamism with Communism and Nazism. This strategy is a reincarnation of McCarthyism. Outright lies are also used to describe Obama as an Islamist, non-American, and a weakling.

Such extremism is prodding coloreds to leave the Republican Party. A voter drive by Democrats in Texas is worrying Republican Party supporters. Registered voters in Texas usually vote for Republicans. But new Democrats in Texas have numbered 600,000, and this increase is intended to overcome voter ID suppression tactics and voter suppression of women.¹¹

French Minister of Economy and Finance Pierre Moscovici noted that his government could not sign agreements with the US as non-essential staff were on furlough. Reality shows that non-essential staff are essential, after all.

Standard and Poor Index estimated that the country lost $24 billion during the shutdown, or a .6% of estimated growth. And, rating agency Finch threatened to downgrade US debt.

Externally, China showed concern in its usual quiet way as it worried that the US might default on the $1.5 trillion federal bonds that China held. Chinese press wrote about de-Americanizing the world and the need to invest in Europe and Asia.¹² The yuan experienced its fastest gain in three days of the shutdown: it gained from 6.10 to the dollar to 6.0995. The last time the yuan traded below 6 was in 1993 when on December 27, it was 5.8245 per dollar. This 1993 rise was a response to the unification of the official and market exchange rates.¹³

Add to these woes, the fact that the heads of friendly states like Germany, Mexico, France and Brazil are demanding an apology from the US for spying on their communications. This would be a diplomatic setback for the US.

In addition, 14 Caribbean nations have united to demand from Britain and, by extension the US, compensation for two centuries of slave trade. Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague has openly declared that the trade is brutal, mercenary, and inhumane from its beginning to its end.¹⁴ Germany paid compensation for the Holocaust. Kenyan inmates won compensation for wrongful imprisonment. The Caribbean countries feel that they have a case. It becomes an open question whether other nations will demand compensation for imperial ills.

Despite all these woes, the world still looks to the US for positive leadership on all fronts.

Bibliography

1. Tamsin McMaffon, A Major Global Depression, Maclean’s,